


in a pillow fort in the city

by softanticipation



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:53:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21761758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softanticipation/pseuds/softanticipation
Summary: Emily only means for it to be a single afternoon together, a quiet interlude fit in the chaos of the holidays, but the snow comes along and throws a wrench in her plans. She ends up overthinking everything, while Kelley just wants to find a way for them to stay warm.
Relationships: Kelley O'Hara/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 47
Kudos: 400





	1. XXVII

**Author's Note:**

> i don't care about the odds of it actually snowing in atlanta, let's blame climate change for this. that being said, every chapter is a different day that they're snowed in together. there's no real point to this, i just wanted them stuck in kelley's apartment together in the space that exists between christmas and new years, and i hope you guys enjoy this as much as i've enjoyed coming up with it.

Finally, almost, it feels like Emily can relax. 

It’s not that she doesn’t like the holidays. No, she loves them just as much as everyone else, but there’s something about this time of year that has her feeling a little drained around the time the wrapping paper is cleared away and the leftovers are safely in the refrigerator. It’s nothing personal, being home with her family when she’s able to is very important to her, but it all still feels like a bit much, a bit too different from what she’s used to. 

Maybe it’s because she doesn’t move like she usually does. Sure, she can usually get a decent group going, convince them to throw or kick a ball around, but it’s not the same. It’s a different kind of adrenaline rush, one that’s not familiar enough, that doesn’t kickstart the same chemicals in her brain that she needs to feel grounded. Her parents always sense when she’s getting restless and suggest she go running, suggest she ask her sister to play a little 1v1 with her, but it’s not what it used to be, and it doesn’t do what she needs it to. 

Maybe it’s because all of her energy gets concentrated into interacting with people that suck the effort right out of her. Emily knows, rationally, that this is just what the holidays are like. Between Thanksgiving, her birthday, all the ensuing Christmas festivities - Emily knows that she’s not the only one who gets tired of making small talk with aunts and uncles, with entertaining the twisted family dynamics, with sitting uncomfortably as everyone talks politics at the table once the tryptophan has made someone delusional enough to think that bringing it up is a good idea. It’s normal to get worn out by all the effort it takes to put on a smile and a dress and do the same thing, day in and day out. 

Maybe it’s because she hasn’t had this: a way to relax. She hasn’t had a way to settle down, to find a way to stop running around for other people because she knows what it’s supposed to do. To call herself selfless would be rich - Emily’s not conceited enough to think she’s been a martyr in any way - but there’s something about the holidays that leaves her very little time for herself. She’d met Moe once or twice for some training, Kelley once early on in the month, but it’s gotten harder and harder to carve out time for herself where she can decompress. 

Of course, now that Christmas is over and done with and Kelley has sufficiently begged her well enough to come over for lunch and a present exchange, Emily has no reason to decline. Not that she would want to, but she still feels like she’s holding in a breath as she borrows a car and ventures out into the freezing weather. 

Kelley’s place smells like cleaning supplies and a big pot of something on the stove. Before Emily can go over to investigate, but after she’s shed her winter gear and dumped it all on the breakfast table, she finds herself attacked by a pair of arms around her neck. 

“Did you sneak in?” Kelley demands, and Emily smiles into her hair as she returns the hug, arms lifting up to wrap low around Kelley’s back. 

“I knocked three times,” Emily tells her, waiting patiently for Kelley to finish saying hello. “It’s like, first you harass me into coming over, and then you don’t even let me in?”

“I was wrapping your present,” Kelley says, and she pulls away but keeps her hands firmly on Emily’s shoulders. “You look different. What’s different with you?”

“Nothing,” Emily says with a chuckle. “It’s literally only been three weeks since you last saw me, nothing has changed.”

“Long time, no see,” Kelley says, and she finally steps away, backing up to lean against the kitchen counter and study Emily closely. It makes her feel mildly uncomfortable, so she heads to the giant pot and lifts the lid to peek inside. 

“You could have seen me sooner if you’d answered your door instead of forcing me to let myself in,” Emily says, sniffing. “What is this? Not your weird vegan shit, I hope.”

“Wild rice and vegetable soup,” Kelley says, and when Emily glances over at her, she sees that she looks mildly offended. “Vegan, but not weird, thank you very much.”

“Smells decent,” Emily says with a shrug, rolling her shoulders back as Kelley starts moving around the kitchen, collecting bowls and spoons. “Is it ready?”

“Just about,” Kelley says. “You want to eat in front of the tv?”

They end up on the couch, not too far away from each other with their feet thrown up on the coffee table with the tv on a random channel. 

“This isn’t half bad,” Emily says graciously as she eats. “I was a little scared when you told me you wanted to cook for me, to be honest.”

“Asshole,” Kelley says. “I’d throw this at you if I didn’t actually want to finish it.”

“Can you blame me?” Emily says. “You no longer eat real cheese - how am I supposed to trust anything you do?”

“Am I going to have to make talking about food off limits?” Kelley asks with narrowed eyes, and Emily grins and shakes her head. 

“Nah, I’ll be nice,” she says. 

“How was your Christmas?” Kelley asks to change the subject, and Emily simply shrugs as she spoons more soup into her mouth. “Is that really all you have to say? You didn’t get any good presents or anything?”

“Trying to make sure you’re not double gifting or anything?” Emily inquires, but when Kelley scowls at her, she hastily gives up the reply she knows that she is looking for. “I mean, Christmas was fine. Hung out with family, drank more eggnog than anyone ever should - ”

“That’s because no one should ever drink any amount of eggnog, ever,” Kelley interrupts. 

“ - got some gift certificates and clothes from my parents, and had an all around fine time,” Emily finishes. “You know how it is. How was yours?”

“Well, I for one don’t talk about Christmas as if it’s the modern day equivalent of being guillotined,” Kelley says, rolling her eyes. “Would it kill you to show a little enthusiasm about something? Or are you the new Scrooge?”

“I can be enthusiastic!” Emily protests. “I can tell you about this amazing banana bread I had the other day, if you want.”

“Wow, baked goods,” Kelley says sarcastically. “How exciting.”

“I think it’s my turn to threaten to throw something as you,” Emily tells her. 

“My Christmas was good,” Kelley says, scraping her spoon along the bottom of her bowl. “I already texted you about how Erin nearly ruined Christmas Eve dinner.”

“I’m pretty sure you already told me most of what you got up to,” Emily says. 

“Yes, that’s because I’m not strangely secretive of everything I do,” Kelley says, and she fixes Emily with a look that, for a minute, makes her worry that this is going to have her feeling exactly like she does when seated in front of her cousins just after her sister has abandoned her and left her to fend for herself. 

Maybe it’s dramatic, Emily thinks, leaning forward to set her empty bowl on the coffee table. She can handle everything that’s thrown at her no problem, always manages to pull through like nothing has happened, but it’s just that she doesn’t like to. She can handle uncomfortable situations but doesn’t want to, and she doesn’t want to sit here with Kelley and stress about being interrogated for information that doesn’t really exist. 

It had been Christmas, Emily thinks, as she stares at the tv and adjusts to get more settled into the cushions. There had been roasted potatoes and relatives and red stockings with everyone’s names on them. Absolutely nothing worth reporting. 

Something must make Kelley understand that, because she just clears her throat and shoves her own bowl on the table before leaning back, mirroring Emily’s positioning, legs outstretched, one arm resting loosely at her side, the other slung around one of the decorative pillows between them. It makes it so her fingers brush against Emily’s, and they’re warm against hers, and Kelley lets them stay like that for a moment before adjusting her wrist so her fingers dangle further down instead of across.

“You cold?” Kelley asks. “I could get you a blanket, or turn on the heat - ”

“Oh, you don’t have the heat on?” Emily asks, nose wrinkling. “No wonder it’s like, just as cold in here as it is outside.”

“Shut up,” Kelley says, lifting her arm to tug a fuzzy throw blanket off the back of the couch, letting it tumble down between the two of them. “Here, get yourself tucked in while I go wash these and then get your present. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you came with empty hands, by the way.”

“Don’t worry, I got you a present,” Emily says, arranging the blanket over her legs, using her feet to tuck the ends of it under her socked toes. “Not everything is immediately tangible, you know.”

“Fair point,” Kelley allows, already in the kitchen and turning on the tap. “Now I’m curious, though.”

“Don’t be, it’s nothing,” Emily says dismissively. She watches tv while Kelley washes their dishes, the only noise being the tv and the running water. Once again she starts to relax, the tension in her shoulders releasing as she loses herself in playoff reports. It feels tentative, and she’s almost worried about it slipping away without notice - normally Kelley is more easy going when it’s just the two of them, but something about her today seems high strung and off-kilter in a way that makes Emily crack all her knuckles once before cycling through them again. She gets lost in it - her left middle finger won’t crack, even though she can feel that it needs to - until Kelley gets unnervingly close to her and she looks up in surprise. 

“Your present,” Kelley says, and she’s got a sizable square box in her arms. It’s not too heavy, Emily knows Kelley doesn’t have a problem lifting, but she can tell that it’s got some heft to it even before Kelley carefully places it down in her lap. “I hope you like it - I was about to ask Lindsey or Mal what they would think, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust them or not.”

“I trust you to pick out decent gifts for me,” Emily says absently, noting the traditional style of the Rudolph printed wrapping paper. “But you were right not to ask them, they wouldn’t have had anything good to say.”

Kelley perches on the edge of the coffee table and Emily shifts her feet over a bit to give her more room. She flips the box over, rotates it so she can reach the bottom and slide her fingers between the paper and ease open a taped seam.

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who like to save the wrapping paper,” Kelley says, and even though Emily is paying close attention to the box, she can sense how intently Kelley is watching her. 

“No, but I don’t want to make a mess in your place,” Emily says. “I can imagine it now - the next time you’re back here, texts about how you’re still finding bits of red noses everywhere.”

Kelley lets out a loud laugh, one that comes from her belly and fills the space between and around them, and it makes Emily grin and look up from where she’s been carefully peeling back bits of Scotch tape. Something about making Kelley laugh bolsters her confidence, and she feels like it’s a bit easier to look at her now. 

“I wouldn’t,” Kelley denies, even though they both know that it’s true. “Now hurry up, I want to know what you think!”

“You totally would,” Emily says with a laugh of her own - albeit, one that’s smaller and quieter. “Oh shit, what is this? It looks so cool.”

Once she’s got most of the bottom and sides untaped, it’s easy to pull off the paper and hand it to Kelley, who takes it and crumples it into her hands. She’s wearing a big smile, nearly vibrating with anticipation as she angles forward and looks at the box with her. 

“It’s like you can grow your own herbs with it,” Kelley says, and Emily catches a glimpse of her excited expression before she’s tilting the box back forty-five degrees and reading the labeling. “It looked like something you’d be into, with all your plants and shit. It fits on your counter, and you don’t need any sun, and it’s supposed to remind you when you water it and everything.”

“Fuck, Kelley,” Emily says in amazement, because this is admittedly pretty cool. “So wait, it comes with the seed pods?”

“Yeah,” Kelley says, and she sits upright and crosses her legs, looking pretty proud of herself. “And then if you want, you can always buy other types of seeds to put in it. Figured you might like to be able to grow your own food while in gray and rainy old Portland.”

“It’s not always gray,” Emily says, shifting the box onto the couch next to her. “But thanks Kelley, it’s a really good idea.”

She means it, and she can tell that it means something to Kelley, what with how pleased she looks with herself and all.

“Now, I can’t promise that my gift is as good as yours,” Emily says, even though she’s pretty sure Kelley is going to love it. “But I hope you like it.”

“I’m sure it’s great,” Kelley says, “but I can at least promise to be a little more enthusiastic than you were just now. Lukewarm performance at best, by the way.”

“Stop,” Emily says, smiling despite the jab. “You know I would be happy with anything you got me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kelley says. “Now what’s mine? I’d ask where, but you’ve already - ”

“Go get my coat,” Emily directs her, and it doesn’t take more than that to send Kelley off, skidding along the floor of her apartment. “It’s in one of the front pockets - the right one, I think.”

“What did you get me?” Kelley asks, and Emily can’t hear her from where she’s stationed herself, at least not over the tv when there’s a substantial amount of space between them. “Did you - did you write me something? This is a card.”

“It’s what’s in the card that counts,” Emily says wisely, and Kelley pulls a face that leaves them both grinning as she opens the envelope. 

“Oh, wow,” Kelley says, eyes widening in surprise as she walks back over to the couch, scanning what Emily’s written there, and she almost feels self conscious as she remembers jotting down a quick note with a black pen she’d found in the back of her mom’s kitchen junk drawer. She hadn’t meant for it to be anything sentimental, but her words had gotten away from her faster than she would ever like to admit. 

“Was the paper confirmation in there?” Emily asks, trying to distract herself from thinking about what Kelley’s reading. “I didn’t forget it, did I?”

Kelley pauses right in front of the middle of the tv, blocking most of Emily’s view, and holds up a piece of folded white printer paper with the hand that isn’t holding the card. 

“Because that’s the real present, you know,” Emily tries to joke, but it comes out much weaker than intended. 

“You can be very eloquent when you choose to be,” Kelley says, looking up from the card and snapping it shut. “Thanks, Em. That was really nice of you, I didn’t expect it. Makes me feel like I should have written you something.”

“Nah, no need,” Emily says with a shrug. “The herb garden is enough.”

But Kelley is already unfolding the printer paper, jaw dropping as she reads. 

“You got me a meal kit subscription?” Kelley asks, sounding delightfully incredulous. “And it’s vegan? So all that making fun of me earlier was what, just for show?”

“Oh no, that was real,” Emily tells her. “I still plan on making fun of you for it.”

“But you’ve got to make some of these with me,” Kelley says, folding the printed subscription confirmation back up and slipping it into the card. “I mean, surely you don’t expect me to cook alone.”

“You can have leftovers,” Emily says. “And once you log in, you can change where they send your meal kits, whether it be here, or in Utah, or wherever you want it. You just have a set number of kits you can use, that’s what I purchased.”

“You’re definitely cooking some of these meals with me,” Kelley says, and she bends over to tuck the card under one of the candles sitting in the middle of the coffee table. “I’ll make it happen.”

“You could barely get me over here in the first place,” Emily points out. “What makes you think I’m coming back any time soon, especially for more vegan shit?”

“Because you just like giving me a hard time,” Kelley says confidently, and she moves around until she’s standing right next to Emily’s stretched out legs, moving the box to the side and plopping down unceremoniously, a little too close for Emily to be entirely comfortable with. She then brings her legs up, feet tucked under her, knees brushing the side of Emily’s thigh.

“Um, what are you doing?” Emily asks, dropping the conversation in favor of trying to keep Kelley from grabbing at the blanket covering her legs. “You gave this to me, remember?”

“Yes, vividly,” Kelley says. “But I’m cold, and it’s mine, so you’re going to have to share with me.”

“You’re the worst,” Emily mutters. “You literally have a whole other stack of blankets in that basket over there, why don’t you get one of them?”

“Because this one is my favorite,” Kelley explains plainly, and Emily finally lets her tug the blanket over, adjusting it so it’s draped across both of them. “Besides, you’ve got a ton of body heat trapped under here.”

“Using me for my body heat, then,” Emily notes. 

“And your excellent gift giving skills,” Kelley says, and she’s so close, and Emily is so aware of it. “And your card writing skills. Unparalleled, truly.”

“I feel like you’re making fun of me,” Emily says, and she’s almost feeling overheated now, now that Kelley is practically pressed up against her as she reaches for the remote. 

“Never,” Kelley says, her voice dropping into something softer, less playfully abrasive. “Now, provided that you're not due back home for a while - you want to watch something besides ESPN?”

“It’s supposed to get cold this evening,” Emily says, thinking of the warning she had been left with before she’d pulled out of the driveway. “Maybe snow, even. I don’t want to get caught driving in that if it happens.”

“And you won’t,” Kelley assures her. “How come on, help me decide which cheesy Christmas movie to put on.”

“I think Emma has made me watch like, all of these,” Emily says, squinting at the Netflix menu. “Seriously though, Kelley, I can’t be driving in the snow.”

“You won’t. The chances of it actually snowing are so low,” Kelley says, more adamantly as she scrolls though. She lays all her weight on Emily now, fully, and Emily slowly relaxes into it, reminding herself that this is why she’s here, why she’d agreed to come in the first place. Kelley is a piece of her normal life, a piece of the traveling and chaos that makes up most of her year. She’s familiar in the best way, someone that Emily doesn’t have to put on a show around. 

So Emily relaxes into it, letting Kelley cuddle into her side to watch a movie, like they’ve done a million times over the last few years. It’s just like all those other times, she tells herself, forcing herself to unclench and embrace the situation for what it is: two friends hanging out. There’s nothing here that would require for her to be on edge, and so Emily does her best to be in the moment and stop getting herself worked up over nothing. 

“Okay, so not that one,” Emily says, when Kelley lands on one and asks what she thinks. “I’m pretty sure that Rose said it sucks, and she knows her cheesy Christmas movies. The other one though, two over - yeah, that one. That one I haven’t seen yet.”

“Okay, good,” Kelley says, letting it load. 

And then, a minute later, while the opening credits are rolling - 

“I’m glad you came over, you know,” Kelley tells her, and once again, Emily feels too hot as she determinedly focuses on the screen. 

“Me too,” she says, letting go of the resistance in her bones as much as she can. 

*

By the time the two of them realize what’s happening, the snow is already sticking to the ground.

“I told you this would happen,” Emily says, standing at one of Kelley’s floor-to-ceiling window panels and peering down at the street below. “Didn’t I?”

“You don’t have to rub it in,” Kelley says, sounding rather surly from behind her. “Besides, don’t act like you weren’t enjoying the movie as much as I was.”

“Yeah, I was enjoying making fun of it,” Emily says, turning her head around to see Kelley still sitting on the couch. “You know, I bet this was your grand plan after all.”

“What was?”

“To trap me here,” Emily says, looking out at the snow again. It’s hard to see when the sky has nearly gotten dark, nighttime approaching rapidly, but if she squints, she can see the flakes float down past the window. 

“Oh, yeah,” Kelley says, and Emily can hear the hint of derision in her voice. “Yeah, I’m so desperate for your company that I decided that trapping you here was my only option. When are you going to stop pretending like you don’t want to be here just as much as I want you to be?”

It’s unexpectedly bold, and Emily doesn’t know what to say in response. She just presses her fingertips to the frozen glass, breathing against the ghost of her own reflection and wondering if it will fog up. For a brief moment she considers coming up with an answer - something sarcastic like how she only came for the present, or maybe even something serious about how Emily kind of likes being here with her without any external influences - but doesn’t, because nothing seems appropriate and she doesn’t want to chance ruining the peaceful vibes that the snow is giving her. 

It’s a little cheesy, but it’s true. Something about the snow makes her heart rate slow and it’s almost like what she didn’t know she needed. 

The partial darkness outside reflects just enough of the interior of the apartment so that Emily is aware of when Kelley gets up, stretching her arms above her as she ambles towards the window. She stops next to Emily, looking forward intently. It seems like they’ll stand there without saying anything, just existing and observing the snow without a word between them, when - 

“Pretty,” Kelley breathes out, and Emily doesn’t even mind that she’s broken the silence. 

“It is,” she agrees. 

“It never snows here,” Kelley says, sounding almost in awe of everything in front of them. “Like, never.”

“We were this close to a white Christmas,” Emily says, and Kelley laughs. 

“It always seems so cool when it happens.”

“That’s because we don’t have to deal with it, day in and day out, for months,” Emily points out.

“True,” Kelley says, head tilting to the side as she steps closer to the window. Emily would swear that she steps to the side too, because suddenly she’s too close, arm jammed up against hers, and she’s not sure what to think about it. 

She leans to her left, away from any of Kelley’s wandering limbs. 

“Do you think it’s going to stay like this?” Emily asks, and then she’s fumbling for her phone in her back pocket, unlocking it so she can check the weather. Except her mom has already texted her, something about calling as soon as possible, and she curses under her breath. “Fuck. Do you think I could make it home if I left now?”

“What?” Kelley asks, turning to her in dismay. “You’re going to leave me? While it’s snowing like this?”

“Well, I have to get home,” Emily says, trying to be reasonable. “Like, I don’t know what you’re thinking I should do, but I kind of have my mom’s car, and she’s going to need it back at some point.”

“Obviously,” Kelley says. “But come on, you can stay a little longer. It’s not like she needs it now.”

“You just want me to stay and keep you company,” Emily says, shaking her head. 

“So? And what if I do?”

It’s a little daring, a little challenging, a little louder than Kelley’s been since Emily first got up from the couch to use the bathroom and then realized what the weather was like outside. For as much as she’s been trying to feel calm, there’s something about Kelley that can still manage to knock her on her ass every once in a while, and make Emily just blink at her in a bit of a shell-shocked fashion that, in her own opinion, she manages to hide quite well. This in particular makes her feel suddenly unbalanced because as much as she’d known on some level that Kelley asking her over repeatedly wasn’t just out of obligation due to proximity or need for companionship when she’s tired of her family, she hadn’t necessarily expected Kelley to want _her_ around specifically. 

And perhaps she’s reading too much into it, Emily thinks, taking stock of her facial muscles to ensure that nothing is out of place, nothing to warrant any kind of suspicion on Kelley’s end. In fact, that’s what’s most likely here: Emily overthinking it to death, as she tends to oftentimes, especially when Kelley is involved. But regardless, Kelley seems like she’s fighting for a way to keep Emily here, and not even bothering to be subtle about it, if it is indeed the truth. 

It inflates her ego a little bit, and deflates whatever resistance she’s been clinging onto as a safety net. 

“Let me call my mom,” Emily says in an attempt to compromise without making it seem like such. “If she thinks the car can get me home without any major incident, I’ll go.”

“And if not?” Kelley asks, and Emily would swear that she almost seems hopeful. 

“Then I’ll stick it out here with you,” Emily says, and it simultaneously feels like she’s both conceding and winning something here. 

After all, she’d be lying if she said that she doesn’t enjoy Kelley’s company on any day of the year, no matter the circumstances. They’re friends, she reasons, pulling up her mom’s number and wandering around the apartment as she waits for the call to be answered. 

By the time she’s off the phone, Kelley is still looking out the window. Every last bit of sun has faded from the sky, but the steadily falling snow gives off an ethereal sort of gray-ish glow to everything. Emily isn’t sure she’s ever seen anything quite like it before, as she looks out over the other buildings and lights from other windows, and she nearly forgets the conversation she’s just had as she takes it in. 

“What did she say?”

Of course, Kelley would never forget.

“That I shouldn’t take my chances,” Emily says. “Except I can’t tell if she’s just being overly careful because she’s my mom, or she genuinely thinks I’m better off here for the time being.”

“She definitely knows that you’re better off here,” Kelley says confidently. “I mean, your mom isn’t really the type to be overly careful.”

“Oh, because you know her so well?”

“Yeah,” Kelley says, unbothered. “We go way back, don’t you know?”

Emily snorts at that. The way that Kelley can so easily switch back and forth between demeanors is nearly giving her whiplash as she tries to keep up, but she thinks she’s doing a pretty decent job as she shoves her phone back into her jeans pocket and presses the flat of her left foot against the inside of her right calf. 

“Well, you’re stuck with me for now,” she tells Kelley, who looks almost frighteningly thrilled at the prospect of more time together. “What’s the grand plan, then?”

“Strip poker,” Kelley say immediately. 

“No, thanks,” Emily says. “Nice try, though.”

“Damn,” Kelley says with a grin. “Was worth a shot, though.”

If Emily were feeling more courageous, she’d utter the thought in her head about how if Kelley wants to get her naked, all she has to do is ask. But instead she stays quiet and waits for Kelley’s next suggestion. 

“We could go play in the snow.”

“There’s barely any on the ground yet,” Emily says. “Besides, it’s dark out - we’ll freeze.”

“Non-strip poker?” Kelley tries. 

“That you’ll turn into strip poker?”

“You think you know me so well,” Kelley says, pretending to be offended in a way that Emily sees right through. “Alright, then. Let’s put on another one of these hilariously horrible movies on - we'll make a drinking game out of it.”

Emily wonders if Kelley’s head is screwed on quite right. 

“I have to drive home,” she says reasonably. “I can’t be drinking.”

“Okay, let’s be realistic for a second,” Kelley says, spinning on the spot before heading to the kitchen, and Emily only follows along to hear her better as she talks over her shoulder. “It’s nearly - what time is it?”

“Nearly six,” Emily says. “It says so on both the microwave and the oven, in case you ever forget.”

Kelley throws her a glare. 

“So it’s five forty-three, and it’s snowing, and there’s no sign of it letting up anytime soon. Your mom thinks you should stay here, I think you should stay here, and yet you think that leaving sometime in the near future, during nighttime, when you’re more likely to crash, is a good idea?”

“Well - ” Emily tries to start, cheeks heating up, but Kelley doesn’t let her continue. 

“You’re staying here,” Kelley says decisively, and Emily tries to protest, but Kelley isn’t hearing any of it. “Just for the night. I mean, the snow will melt by the morning and you can head back when it’s light out and there’s less of a chance of you wrecking the car. Okay?”

“I can’t,” Emily says, shaking her head. 

“And why can’t you?”

“Because I don’t want to impose,” Emily says, and she’s unblinkingly watching Kelley stand up on her tiptoes to try and reach a pair of wine glasses on the top shelf of a cabinet. “This is your place, Kelley. I’m not just going to invite myself in for a sleepover.”

“You could never impose,” Kelley says, falling back onto the flats of her feet, glasses still untouched, to shoot Emily another sharp look. “By the time you leave, I’m going to have it drilled into your head that I actually like having you here. You should be honored, you know.”

Emily is a little worried that her cheeks are starting to redden, but she just shrugs and tries not to think about how despite the fact that they’re shared dozens of nights in hotel rooms together, this somehow feels different. 

“Why should I feel honored?” she asks, and Kelley is reaching again, pressing her hips into the kitchen counter as she still fails to get the glasses.

“Because I don’t let just anyone stay over,” Kelley says, grunting the words out as her fingers swipe forward, pushing the stemware further out of reach. “Now, are you going to help me, or are you going to force me to drink the bottle of red my sister got me for Christmas straight from the bottle?”

Emily smiles and a small laugh slips out of her mouth involuntarily as she goes to help Kelley. It’s a little awkward to maneuver around her, especially since she refuses to move out of the way, but Emily does her best to keep a sliver of space between her front and Kelley’s back as she reaches up on her own tiptoes. It’s a close call - both in how she nearly doesn’t reach the glasses and how she nearly ends up crashing into Kelley, pulling back at the last second - but she comes away victorious, setting them both down right side up as Kelley goes for the bar cart in the corner of her dining area. 

“I hope you like this one,” Kelley says, voice a bit distant as she bends down to retrieve the bottle. “Erin says it’s dry, but I don’t know if that’s your taste or not.”

“I’m fine with it,” Emily says. “Are we having a drinking game with wine, then?”

“See, I knew you’d come around!” Kelley says, and she pops up and looks at Emily with a beaming smile. “I mean, that was mostly just a suggestion, but we can if you want. Erin would kill me, but she doesn’t have to know.”

“Nah, we can just drink it like regular people,” Emily says, and she feels a bit stupid, waiting there with the wine glasses as Kelley searches through a kitchen drawer. 

“Where is that corkscrew?” Kelley asks, mostly to herself. 

Emily watches her as she gets the wine open before abandoning the corkscrew on the counter with the cork still in it, and she pours a healthy amount into each glass before handing one over. 

“Come on,” Kelley says, picking up the bottle and nudging Emily it. 

“Are you planning on having us finish that?” Emily asks, eyeing the bottle warily as she grips the glass more securely. 

“Maybe,” Kelley says mischievously. “I mean, there’s nothing I hate more than keeping around a half-empty bottle of wine.”

She’s definitely trying to get them a little buzzed, Emily thinks, as they find their way back to the couch. The whole idea makes her raise her eyebrows a bit, but once again, she figures that she’s just overthinking this. It only seems weird because it’s just the two of them, Emily reminds herself, thinking of the times they’ve hung out with teammates and had nights similar to this. Just because there’s no buffer, just because Kelley is once again inching closer and closer into Emily’s personal space, just because it’s late and cozy with most of the lights off and nothing to distract them from each other - 

It doesn’t have to mean anything, Emily reminds herself. 

The wine doesn’t have to mean anything. Sitting so close to each other that Emily can feel the warmth radiating off of Kelley doesn’t have to mean anything. Being alone together for the night doesn’t have to mean anything. 

It doesn’t have to, but somehow Emily’s brain keeps trying to trick her into thinking that it does. 

The movie is a little hard to watch, and not just because it’s comically horrible. Kelley keeps cackling during parts of it, and Emily is actually concerned that she’s genuinely finding it funny. It’s hard because Kelley keeps jabbing at her with her fingers and elbows, asking her if she wants a refill and encouraging her to drink some more. 

“It’s just wine,” Kelley says persuasively, and Emily’s been trying to say that she’s had enough, that Kelley should be enjoying it for herself, that it’s what Erin probably intended, but it’s all falling on deaf ears. She gets poured another glass, one that seems more full than necessary, and only continues to sip at it because it’s something to do besides be consumed with the way that Kelley is, once again, pressed right up against her side. 

Just as it ends, just as Emily thinks that she can stand up and get away and concoct some kind of reasoning to keep them apart for the rest of the night (maybe she’ll feign tiredness, claim that she needs to get to sleep as soon as possible), Kelley is poking her again and reading the side of her face against her arm. It’s warm and close and Emily knows that they’ve cuddled before, that Kelley is touchy and grabby and this isn’t new for them, not really, but her mind is still playing with her, and it’s not very nice at all. 

No, the way her heart picks up speed doesn’t feel nice at all. 

“You’ve been quiet,” Kelley says, and she sounds hazy in the way that the streets look when there’s fog out. It’s like Emily knows that there isn’t much distance between them - almost none at all, in fact - but something about it makes it all feel wildly out of reach, makes her feel unsure of what she’s doing. 

“It’s probably the wine,” Emily offers up, and she knows it’s a weak explanation. 

“You don’t usually get quiet when you drink,” Kelley says, and when Emily looks down, she can’t see the frown that she hears in Kelley’s tone, not with how her face is angled into the fabric of Emily’s sweater. 

“I’m not usually drinking wine around you,” Emily says, and it’s true enough that Kelley seems to accept it after a moment of turning it over in her head. 

“Does wine make you sleepy?” Kelley asks, and it’s kind of teasing with how she tilts her chin up to grin at Emily. 

“I guess so,” Emily says, and she wants to move away because their faces are too close together, close enough that she can feel Kelley’s exhale, but something about the moment is so arresting that she lets it linger longer than she should. 

But then she realizes that this is exactly the out that she was looking for, and she didn’t even have to find a way to work it into the conversation herself. Kelley has done it for her, dropped it into her lap tied together neatly with an overly large bow, and she clears her throat roughly before looking up at the tv, just to have anything else to focus on. It doesn’t even take much effort for her to yawn hugely, and then Kelley is straightening up and it feels like all the torture has ended. 

For the time being, at least. 

“Do you want to get ready for bed?” Kelley asks. “I know it’s early, but I can find you some clothes and then maybe just hang out and wind down in my bed.”

It’s like the anxiety shoots right back up then, constricting Emily’s throat as she stutters a bit while trying to find the words to prevent that from happening. 

“Oh, um, I thought - I didn’t think - that’s your bed, you know?” she gets out, and she knows that her face must be red with how hot it feels. 

“Yes, I know,” Kelley says, and Emily hates how entertained she looks. “I’ve been sleeping in it for a few years now. Picked it out myself and everything.”

“Shut up,” Emily tells her, and Kelley just grins. “You know what I mean - that’s your bed. I’m not sleeping in it.”

“Who said anything about sleeping?” Kelley counters, and Emily thinks she might die. “No, I’m just kidding. It’s a big bed, Em. We can share it.”

“No way,” Emily says, shaking her head. “No, this couch is nice, and I’ll be fine out here. It’s just for a night, and like I said before, I really don’t want to impose.”

“You’re not imposing,” Kelley says.

“I don’t care,” Emily says, and this feels like an important point, one that’s she can’t budge on, no matter how disappointed it makes Kelley look. “It’s your bed, and I’ll be fine here. I will take you up on some pajamas or something, though.”

“I could convince you if I wanted to,” Kelley says, and she’s sitting sideways facing Emily, legs drawn up under her as they have been with her right arm stretched out along the back of the couch. Her fingertips keeps skimming against the back of Emily’s neck, and she wishes she wasn’t wearing her hair up in a bun, just because she would kill to put some kind of barrier between their skin. 

“No you couldn’t,” Emily says. 

“I could,” Kelley says, and she’s usually very convincing when she wants to be, as she’s proven multiple times since Emily had come over, but this is different. “If I really wanted to, I’d convince you to join me in my big, comfortable bed, and you’d end up thinking it was your idea.”

“You’re not that good,” Emily says, and she’s certain it’s just her thinking of how different it would be to spend a night in  _ this _ bed, in  _ this _ apartment, compared to the various hotel rooms they’ve casually napped in together over the years. “Anyway - how about you get me something to change into, and I’ll take care of these?”

She rises as she speaks, picking up her wine glass and reaching for Kelley’s. A glance at Kelley reveals a rather unhappy expression, lips pursed as she meets Emily’s eyes with hers. 

“Yeah,” Kelley says slowly. “Alright, just let me go get ready for bed first.”

Emily rinses the glasses before carefully setting them to dry, and it’s only when she pulls out her phone again that she realizes that her hands are shaking. Her fingers tremble as she thumbs at the screen, typing a message out to her parents to tell them that she’ll come home as soon as the weather is better. It’s weird, how she bends at the waist and rests her elbows on the kitchen counter as she waits for a response, because this apartment feels foreign and familiar all at the same time and she doesn’t know what to do about it. 

She doesn’t know what to do with Kelley, who emerges from her room after fifteen minutes looking soft and at ease with her hair tied up and her legs bare, exposed by the sleep shorts she’s wearing. Emily doesn’t see her at first, laughing to herself as she scrolls through Twitter, but once Kelley clears her throat, she looks up and quickly straightens her spine. It’s too quick, she thinks, as the bones there creak and she’s confronted with the sight in front of her. Surely her legs are cold, but Kelley doesn’t seem bothered. 

“I left you some clothes on the bathroom counter,” Kelley says, jabbing a thumb behind her. “I know lunch was kind of late, so do you want me to fix a full dinner or just a snack for us?”

“Um, whichever you prefer,” Emily says with a shrug. 

“You sure you have no opinion here?” Kelley asks with raised eyebrows, and Emily passes her without pausing. “I do have food here, you know. I could cut up some of my favorite dairy-free cheese, if you want, make a cheese board with - ”

“Whichever you prefer,” Emily repeats, voice raised slightly as she traces the path to Kelley’s bathroom. 

It’s nondescript, like most of Kelley’s apartment. Clean and modern, nothing too fancy, but it gets the job done. Emily’s been here enough to not need to search for the toothpaste, locating it on the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet as she turns on the tap. She goes through the motions a bit, using the toothbrush Kelley has clearly set aside for her, sitting on top of a folded blue shirt and some gray sweatpants. It’s not until she’s done rinsing and yanks the elastic from her hair that she really looks at her reflection, and something about it is jarring. 

It’s not that she doesn’t want to be here - not at all. Emily is fine being here, she tells herself as she takes in her tangled hair and the dark circles under her eyes, products of late nights and early mornings. No, Emily is fine being here, she tells herself as she tries to comb her fingers through her hair. The knots are just a little too tight though, and she deliberates for a second before grabbing the brush sitting to the side of the sink and working it through from root to end, even though her sister has told her a million times that that’s not the best way to detangle it. 

Emily is fine being here. She’s fine being in Kelley’s space, with spending the night, with being perfectly sensible and safe and waiting out the snow and below freezing temperatures until the city of Atlanta can guarantee that the roads are safe. She’s fine with borrowing her things and washing her dishes and knowing where things are without looking. She’s fine with being this close to her, with letting Kelley be the one person who can set her nerves on edge while simultaneously soothing them, because that’s just how it’s always been between them. 

Nothing here is new, and Emily is fine with that. 

What she’s not fine with, is how she suddenly can’t seem to reconcile all of it in her head. 

A short rap on the door pulls her attention away from her own awful overthinking tendencies, and then Kelley’s voice comes through the wood, “Do you want scrambled eggs or yogurt with granola?”

“What kind of yogurt?” Emily asks, knowing better than to trust whatever Kelley’s got in her fridge without seeing it for herself. Kelley doesn’t speak for a long second, and then - 

“Soy.”

“Eggs,” Emily tells her, working on a particularly stubborn knot. She knows she shouldn’t repeatedly tie her hair up in buns and ponytails without any regard for the state of the mess, but the knowledge alone has yet to stop her. “Which aren’t vegan, by the way.”

“I’m flexible, you know that,” Kelley says, and it’s muffled and innocent, but it still makes Emily blink at herself as she listens to Kelley walk away. 

The shirt she’s been left has long sleeves and “LFG” on the front, and it makes Emily roll her eyes. It figures, she thinks as she pulls it on, that Kelley would force her to wear her own merchandise. Everything is clean and soft and smells good, and by the time she’s folded up her own day clothes and finished with as much of her night routine as she can accomplish in someone else’s place, Kelley is still in the kitchen. Emily can tell from the smells and sounds drifting into the bedroom, and she sets down her stuff on a clean section of Kelley’s dresser before her attention is stolen by a picture tucked into the frame of the full length mirror in the corner of the room. 

It’s far from the only one there, Emily is aware. Kelley’s steadily been building up a collection of snapshots, prints stolen from others, demanded from team photographers, gifted to her by her mom - she likes visual memories, Emily knows. She remembers when she was here last, almost a full year prior, and she hadn’t even bothered to give Kelley’s room more than a cursory glance on her way to the toilet. The two of them had been so busy playing FIFA that she hadn’t looked in this direction at all, and now Emily is wondering which pictures are new and which have been here for a while. 

Because there’s one of the two of them in national team gear, side by side as they do leg lifts on the ground, and Emily can’t help but smile as she notices that it’s about eye level, tucked into the right side of the frame. She’s pretty sure it was taken last fall, and pulls it out from where it’s been wedged in to look at it closer. Something must possess her to do it, she thinks, even as she holds the edges by the tips of her fingers, because she’s seen this picture before, and it’s nothing new for her (it just goes to prove that there’s nothing new about being here, nothing new about how they’re interacting with each other, no reason for her to be feeling a million shades of conflicted about everything that’s happened between them today). 

It’s like something out of a movie scene, with how she doesn’t even realize that Kelley is in the room until she clears her throat, forcing Emily to whip around at the speed of light, picture still held carefully in her hands. 

“Hi,” she says, for lack of anything better. 

“Hi,” Kelley says, setting two twin plates of scrambled eggs down on her bed. “What are you looking at?”

Emily just turns on her head to face the mirror again, noticing the color in her cheeks before taking great care to slide the picture back where it came from. 

“Nothing,” Emily says, and she can feel more than she can hear Kelley approach her. “Just - you’ve got such great photos here. You’re really good at picking out the good ones.”

“Thanks,” Kelley says, and there’s nothing special about it, nothing special at all about the way she raises an index finger to trace around the perimeter of the one that Emily had been studying. “Especially this one, right?”

Emily swallows hard and nods. 

“Yeah,” she says. But it feels too heavy, too much like she’s given something away with how she’d been stupid and silly enough to pull the picture out from the frame, and she can’t stand it so she - 

She side-steps out from between Kelley and the mirror, looking at their dinner. There’s sliced avocado on each plate and the eggs looks like they’ve been seasoned well and it all looks good, not that she’ll ever admit it. 

“We're not eating in here, are we?” she asks. 

“Well, originally I just wanted to check on you,” Kelley says, unaffected as her eyes pass over Emily on their way to something on the other side of the room, on their way to the open closet door. “But if you like my pictures, I’ve got albums that my mom made me take from her at Thanksgiving - something about trying to declutter the house. Erin didn’t want them I guess, and I told her I’d take a look through before letting Jerry at them. He’s a guy, you know? Has no idea what it means to be sentimental.”

As she talks, she drags a large plastic carton out from the floor of her closet and unsnaps the lid to reveal a good amount of old school photo albums stored inside. 

“Oh, wow,” Emily says, and she makes her way around the large bed to join Kelley. “This is so cool - have you started to go through them yet?”

“Not yet,” Kelley says, looking up at Emily from where she’s crouched down, rifling through the carton’s contents. “Want to help me?”

And that’s how they end up sprawled across Kelley’s bed, flipping through the old crinkly pages and cooing over faded pictures of her family while balancing their plates on their thighs. 

“Your mom clearly went through a sepia phase,” Emily observes as they come across several pages worth of filtered photos. “Did she know how ahead of her time she was?”

Kelley snorts as she pulls a picture of her and Jerry drinking juice boxes out of its sleeve.

“Always,” Kelley says, angling the photo to see it better in the light. “I mean come on, look at those matching outfits. The woman knew what she was doing.”

“Please, you guys have got nothing on my childhood photos,” Emily says through a mouthful of egg. “I’m pretty sure Emma and I wore the same thing every day for the first ten years of our lives.”

“This one goes in the pile,” Kelley says, setting it down on the stack that’s been steadily growing as they work their way though. 

“You’re going to have to get a little more selective,” Emily says, and she scoops up the last of her food as her left hand turns the page. "We've already got like, fifty of these set aside."

“We can’t all be as picky as you,” Kelley says. 

“Says the girl who won’t even eat ice cream,” Emily fires back, chewing quickly as she speaks. 

“Cover your mouth,” Kelley tells her. “That’s gross.”

“You’re gross,” Emily says, and it feels like normal as they keep at it. She’s not afraid to joke with Kelley about how dated some of these pictures look, questioning her fashion choices in various yearbook photos and eventually setting their empty plates on one of the nightstands before stretching out over the entire length of the bed. Kelley rolls onto her stomach, feet resting on her pillows next to where Emily has reclined against the headboard, both of them armed with an album as Kelley promises that she trusts Emily enough to exercise good judgment with her choices. 

“You have good taste,” Kelley says, as Emily hands her a few, waiting for approval. “Even if you can’t appreciate the beauty of dress-up.”

“Kell, not even British royalty would put this hat on their heads,” Emily says, adding them to the pile, which is growing rapidly. 

“That’s the point,” Kelley insists, and she kicks her foot sideways, dangerously close to Emily’s head. 

It’s ridiculous, how many photos there are, and when Emily’s eyes start drooping halfway through album five (she doesn’t even want to think about how many more there are, it feels like they’ve barely made a dent in the carton), she isn’t surprised at all. Kelley doesn’t seem to notice though, eyes firmly fixed on her own album, and Emily reaches over to nudge her in the side of her knee to catch her attention. 

“What’s up?” Kelley says, head swiveling around to look at her, chin propped up in her palm. 

“I’m getting tired.”

“You were getting tired like, four hours ago,” Kelley says skeptically. “How do I know you’re not playing me?”

“Because I was tired then, too,” Emily says, closing the album and setting it beside her legs. “Making fun of you can only fuel me for so long.”

“You’re mean,” Kelley says with a frown, but she still slides off the bed to gather the photo albums and put them on top of the replaced carton lid. “I just want to spend time with you - you don’t have to make it so difficult.”

Emily stays where she is, knees bent and in the air as she scratches at a healing scab on her ankle. She wants to have more answers to questions she doesn’t dare ask, like why Kelley is so adamant about this and why it feels so strange to take it seriously. If Kelley’s said it multiple times, it’s likely that she means it, but the part of Emily that feels bad for possibly dismissing her feelings is often overrun by that part of her that doesn’t want to confront the reality of it all being less than what she hopes for. 

Her feelings are hardly noteworthy, never have been, and normally Emily is good at giving credibility to her thoughts and emotions, but there seems to be an exception wherever Kelley is involved. They’re close friends, sometimes closer than others, but that’s always been the extent of it and that means that it doesn’t need examining, not really. Emily shouldn’t be attacking their every interaction with the same analytical manner with which she approaches most things, and she’s gotten used to just letting things between them be casual with an undercurrent of platonic significance, but today is different. 

Or at the very least, it feels different. 

So for a second, Emily squashes down her pride and everything she’s grown used to arming herself with when interacting with Kelley (she wonders if she’s ever been fully relaxed with Kelley, or if she’s just convinced herself that that’s been the case, if she’s been painting everything between them with a rosy-colored tint, if she looks back on every bit of time they’ve spent together with a bit of a romanticizing lens). She looks up at her and stills her fidgeting, unsurprised and yet dreading the way that Kelley is watching her, eyes uncommonly focused. It’s not often that Kelley gives all of her attention to one thing (it’s one point where they differ, Emily knows that, they’ve got opposing tolerances where their focus is concerned), and even less often when she gives it to Emily, but when it happens, Emily knows that she’s needs to respond. It’s what Kelley’s waiting for, as a sort of reward for slowing down to meet her, and Emily braces herself to give her what she wants. 

“I don’t mean to make it difficult,” Emily says honestly, and Kelley wastes no time in climbing up onto the bed, scrambling on her side to lay down and face Emily. 

“I missed you,” Kelley says, and it’s open and earnest and not at all casual, and Emily doesn’t know what to do with it so she goes back to scratching. “I missed spending time with you. Why do you keep acting like that’s a bad thing?”

Emily shrugs, angling her legs so she can make sure she hasn’t opened the scab.

“It’s not,” she says. “I guess I just - it hasn’t been that long since we saw each other.”

“So what, I’m not allowed to miss you?”

Emily looks over as Kelley pushes up onto her elbow so she can pull her hair out of its bun, watches as it all tumbles down around her face, smooth and unknotted and casting shadows across her cheeks in the dim lamplight they’ve been working with. 

“No, I guess you’re allowed to do whatever you want to,” she says, thinking far too hard as she speaks, mind whirring too fast as she makes sure not to give anything away, anything that would leave her feeling exposed. 

“Come on, stop making this weird,” Kelley says, reaching over to lightly pinch Emily’s forearm. 

And Emily knows that Kelley’s patience will run out eventually, and she’s tired and doesn’t want to be stubborn and awful to Kelley who has been nothing but nice to her all day, so she sighs heavily and wiggles down the bed until she’s laying down a bit more fully. 

“I’m not trying to be weird,” she says, and it’s not emphatic enough to be a protest. “I just - ”

“What, you think there’s a measure of time that must pass before I’m allowed to miss hanging out with you?” Kelley asks, and she’s down on her side and tucking her hand under her pillow. 

“No,” Emily says. and she wants to turn to face Kelley, the instinct is there, but she remains bolted flat to the bed as she rests on her back, looking up at the ceiling. “Not that. I just thought, the holidays are so busy, you don’t really have time to miss people and - ”

Kelley scoffs but it’s gentle and not at all condescending. 

“Please,” she says. “The holidays are when we miss people the most. Yeah, they’re busy, but they’re so draining and leave you so much space to think about who else you wish you were spending time with.”

Emily’s stomach lurches, so she folds her hands across her abdomen and lets her eyelids flutter closed. She breathes in and out -  _ once, twice, three times _ \- before saying anything, steadying herself so it doesn’t come out any way other than intended. 

“The holidays are so exhausting,” she says, and the mattress is comfortable, cradling her muscles and working out the kinks in her neck. “Like, I just wanted to get away for a second.”

“Is that the only reason you’re here?” Kelley asks, and it could be joking, but something tells Emily that’s it’s not entirely. There’s an undercurrent of seriousness there, and it upsets her, because she’d never meant to make Kelley doubt how she feels about their friendship. “Just to get away?”

She takes another few breaths, feeling the rise and fall of every inhale and exhale. Sleep settles in her limbs, and she’d meant to return to the couch after closing the photo album, but now she’s thinking about how far the living room is, and how Kelley is just as still as she is, and how the bed is more than big enough for the two of them. 

“Of course not,” Emily says, and she’s not even cold with the covers still underneath her as she curls onto her side a little bit, eyes still closed. “You know I like spending time with you. But it sounds like you get it, how overwhelming it can be to be with family so much for so long. And I don’t know, I just wanted to relax and stop feeling like I had to be ‘on’ all the time, you know?”

“Yeah,” Kelley says. “You’ve always needed your time away from all of that.”

“I don’t have to worry as much when I'm with you,” Emily says, unsure of exactly how true it is in the moment, but it’s why she’d come over, and it’s as honest as she can manage when she’s feeling like she could fall asleep at any moment. “I missed that, I guess. I missed how easy it always is with you.”

And she thinks that she might hear Kelley say something, but then she’s asleep and unable to think of anything at all for the first time all day. 


	2. XXVIII

Waking up alone isn’t exactly abnormal for Emily, but it does take a minute for her to realize where she is and why it feels like there should be someone else next to her. She’s on her stomach, face mashed half in the pillow and half in the mattress, and the room feels chilly despite the warmth trapped under the comforter that’s covering her. There’s a distant memory of it being pulled over her, but she can’t remember whether she did it, or if Kelley did. 

This isn’t some big mystery, Emily knows that. She knows where she is and how she got here, and the only questions in her head are whether the roads outside are clear enough to drive back to her parents’ house, and where Kelley has gone. Kelley is an early riser, so dependably so that Emily isn’t worried by her absence, but she is mildly curious as she blinks her eyes open and turns her head to the side more so that she can take in her surroundings. 

Everything had been swathed in a garish warm yellow last night, a wash of color from the lightbulbs that had suited the nineties photo albums they were poring over. But now it’s like the entire room is bathed in cool bluish gray in the most peaceful way, and it’s such a stark contrast not just in how it looks, but in how it makes her feel. Because really, she’d been so worked up yesterday over nothing that had mattered, not really, and it was like Kelley had known - she had surely been able to read Emily’s mood, been able to tell that something was off. There’s no other explanation for it all, Emily thinks as she hears footsteps. 

There’s no other explanation for how Kelley had managed to soothe her worries without Emily even needing to talk about them first. The only explanation that Emily can think of is that Kelley had known, had been able to read her well enough thanks to years of knowing each other at their highest and their lowest. She’d only had half her head in the apartment all afternoon and evening, one foot already out the door despite the poor circumstances, but Kelley had so effortlessly held out a hand and dragged her in the rest of the way. 

And Emily had let her, too tired from all her resisting to manage to do so anymore. 

She can hear Kelley as she comes in, as she sits down on the side of the bed that Emily’s been occupying all night. The mattress dips and Emily doesn’t even bother pretending that she isn’t awake, peering through sleep-clouded eyes as Kelley tilts her head and smiles at her. 

“Good morning, sunshine,” Kelley says, and it’s much less in-your-face than Emily would normally expect from her at this hour - not that she has any idea what hour it is, but she has a feeling that it’s late enough, judging from how well rested she feels after the extreme exhaustion that had forced her to bed. “How’d you sleep?”

She’s got a mug of coffee in each hand (they’re mismatched, Emily notes, one with a black and white design surrounding a bold “K,” the other printed with tiny gold dots) but makes no move to offer one to Emily. 

“Well,” Emily says, and her voice is scratchier than expected, which just confirms her theory that she’s slept hard. “You?”

“I slept okay,” Kelley says, and she almost looks like she hasn’t been awake for too long, with how she keeps blinking for a little longer than would be considered normal. “I’m glad you ended up taking the bed with me.”

“Are you sure you didn’t drug me?” Emily asks, finally rolling onto her back before sitting up, scooting back against the headboard and taking the covers with her. “I fell asleep so fast, I thought for sure you had something to do with it. Probably put something in my eggs.”

Kelley lets out an easy going chuckle as she passes Emily the less empty of the two mugs. 

“I had nothing to do with that, you did that all by yourself,” Kelley tells her, both hands cradling the “K.” 

Emily chooses not to respond, instead smiling into her mug as she presses the rim of it to her mouth, trying to gauge how hot it is. 

“I know how you like your coffee, so don’t worry,” Kelley says, watching her closely, and Emily wants to tell her that she knows - she knows that Kelley knows how she takes her coffee, just as she knows how Kelley takes hers. But she doesn’t, instead just taking a sip and closing her eyes as it hits, just a few degrees away from burning her tongue. 

“You’re not too bad at this,” she murmurs, and Kelley hoists herself further up onto the bed, legs crossed and nearly on top of Emily, but she doesn’t seem to mind, so Emily decides not to either. 

“Making coffee?” Kelley questions. 

“Wake up calls,” Emily says. 

“Oh man,” Kelley says, setting her mug down on her knee. “Now that I feel like you’re finally coming around, I don’t want to have to do this.”

“Do what?” Emily asks, her heart rate spiking, and she doubts it’s because of the couple of sips of caffeine she’s had. 

“Tell you the bad news,” Kelley explains. 

“Are the roads good to go?” Emily asks, craning her neck around to try and look out of Kelley’s bedroom window, but it’s pointless - all that’s visible from this angle is foggy sky as far as the eye can see. 

“Wouldn’t that be good news?” Kelley asks, and she sounds like she’s halfway between joking and genuinely wanting to know Emily’s opinion on the matter. 

“Oh,” Emily says, and she holds the mug close to her face, wondering if maybe she’s read this morning wrong, if maybe Kelley isn’t still enjoying her company. Maybe the coffee is one last kind gesture, Emily thinks, before she has to go. “Sorry, I just thought - ”

“I thought that you wanted to get out of here as soon as possible,” Kelley says accusingly, but it’s clear that she doesn’t mean any offense by it. “Wouldn’t you being able to leave, be a good thing?”

“Do you want me to leave?” Emily asks, because she needs to know, needs to clarify - 

“ _No_ ,” Kelley says, as though the mere concept is ridiculous. “Of course not. I mean, what else am I supposed to do without you here? Hang out alone? Go back to my parents’ house?”

It’s so emphatic and unquestionable, and for as confusing as Kelley can seem sometimes, there’s something about the way she’s looking at Emily that leaves nothing up for debate. She’s unsure of what is it that makes her so trusting, of what it is exactly that lets her cast aside her own inner thoughts to let Kelley’s words seem like truth, but Emily feels herself smiling widely, hiding it in another sip of coffee to keep Kelley from seeing exactly how glad she is to hear this. 

“You wanted me to stay,” Emily starts as Kelley pulls at the covers, draping them over her lap.

“Yes, and you were unbelievably difficult about it,” Kelley reminds her. 

“Yeah, but that was yesterday,” Emily says. “Yesterday was before I knew that staying over meant coffee in bed.”

“Oh, is that all it takes with you, then?” Kelley asks, and she’s leaning closer just a smidge, and Emily stays still where she’s propped up against the pillows, not giving into the urge to put more distance between them. “If I’d known, I could have promised you waffles or something. Sweet-talked you into _not_ insisting on driving home in the middle of a blizzard.”

“It was hardly a blizzard,” Emily says, rolling her eyes, and Kelley’s legs are touching hers, bare skin against the thick sweatpants she’s borrowing. “It was flurrying, that was all. Once they can be sure there isn’t any ice on the roads, once - ”

“You’ve got to see this,” Kelley interrupts, and it’s rather rude, the way she suddenly jumps off the bed and yanks at Emily’s right arm, nearly making her spill her coffee in the process. “Come on, let’s go.”

‘What?” Emily asks, and she quickly transfers the mug to her other hand to avoid dropping it in the middle of Kelley’s bed as she gets out from under the warmth. The cold of the apartment is shocking, but she doesn’t have a chance to adjust to the way goosebumps spring up under her clothes, as Kelley is still yanking her arm out of the bedroom and over to the large living room windows. 

“Look,” Kelley breathes out. “Look down.”

“You nearly pulled my arm out of its socket,” Emily complains, switching her mug back to her right hand as she bumps up against the icy window, looking at where Kelley is pointing. 

It nearly takes her breath away. She has to look hard, so hard that she feels like she’s straining her eye muscles, but it’s worth it when she realizes that both of them were wrong. The city looks like it’s been blanketed in a layer of snow that’s neither too thin nor too thick, but instead just right. It’s beautiful in a surreal sort of way, because she definitely wasn’t expecting this but it’s enchanting in a way that makes her feel better about giving in, about letting herself stay and experience this with Kelley. 

Because when she instinctively glances to the side, Emily isn’t expecting the way that Kelley is looking at her. She’d thought that Kelley would be looking down at the snow, same as her, but instead she’s watching for Emily’s reaction, wide-eyed and enthusiastic and bright. 

“What do you think?” Kelley asks eagerly. “Isn’t it - ”

“Yeah,” Emily says, and she presses her free palm to the glass to feel how cold it is, looking back out at the scene in front of her. 

“You’re going to end up with a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels before you leave,” Kelley says, but Emily doesn’t care. 

“It’s so cool,” Emily says. “Like, I can’t even remember the last time it snowed here.”

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Kelley says. “I mean, when is this ever going to happen again?”

“Probably never,” Emily says unthinkingly, and then it hits her. 

This is such a rare happenstance, something that no one would ever expect to happen here, and yet they get to experience it together. If she hadn’t stuck around for that movie, if she hadn’t let Kelley convince her to stay, if she hadn’t come over in the first place, she wouldn’t be where she is right now. _They_ wouldn’t be where they are right now, right where they were the previous evening, standing in front of the windows and marveling at this post-Christmas miracle. 

And sure, there are plenty of people that Emily would love to spend a snowy day with, that she’d throw snowballs at and curl up in coffee shops with, but it feels significant that she’s experiencing a hometown snowfall with someone who can appreciate it as much as she does. Kelley gets it, Emily can just tell from the pure, unbridled joy and excitement woven into every move she makes, every look she wears. It’s more special than she could have dreamed of, and something about how Kelley keeps looking over at her (to see how she’s doing? To make sure she’s not trying to leave? Emily isn’t quite sure) has her feeling as if she doesn’t sink into this and enjoy it, she’ll only regret it. 

So she decides to enjoy this time together as much as she can. 

“You know what we should do?” she says the next time they catch each other’s eyes. 

“What?” 

“Go outside,” Emily says, grinning wickedly and watching Kelley’s eyes light up.

“Yes!” she says, and Emily feels like if she wasn’t clutching her mug still, she’d be jumping up and down, clapping her hands like a child. “Okay, we have to.”

“Like, I know we can’t drive anywhere like this,” Emily says, casting a glance back out through the window. “But we could just like play in it or something.”

Kelley gasps. 

“We could have a snowball fight!” she exclaims, and then she’s off, headed for the kitchen. Emily follows right behind her, watching as Kelley drains the rest of her coffee before setting the mug down in the sink. “Okay, we have to do this. Do I need to get you some clothes?”

“Please don’t keep dressing me up like I’m here to promote your brand,” Emily says, looking down at her own chest. 

“Okay, but how about - ”

“Nothing from the Royals either,” Emily interrupts. “And nothing from Stanford. Nothing from - nothing with any logo of any sort, okay?”

“You’re no fun at all,” Kelley says with a pout, and Emily takes a gulp of her coffee which is still good but rapidly cooling down. “I don’t keep a lot of clothes here! It’s kind of a dumping ground for stuff that I either need all the time, or don’t need at all.”

“I’m sure you’ll find me something,” Emily tells her, and as much as part of her doesn’t mind being all marked up like she’s obviously wearing Kelley’s stuff, she kind of doesn’t want to think about how much she doesn’t mind, and what that means. 

“Fine,” Kelley says, and she’s still pouting even as she walks back to her room. “And don’t you even dare think of washing those mugs!”

“I’ve got to earn my keep somehow, don’t I?” Emily jokes, and she laughs it off but Kelley turns to flash her a frown. 

“No, you don’t,” she says, and Emily can hear the stubbornness coloring her tone. “You’re here because I want you here, okay? I don’t expect you to do anything.”

“I know,” Emily says quickly, because she doesn’t want Kelley upset or thinking that there’s any lingering part of her that doesn’t want to be here. “I know, but I don’t mind. It makes me feel like I’m welcome here, like I’m not helping out because I have to, but because it’s a natural thing to do when there are dirty dishes in the sink.”

She’s not sure of exactly what she says that makes Kelley’s expression even out, but it’s a relief when it happens. 

“Okay,” Kelley says, running her hands through her hair. “Okay, that’s fair. Alright, just come back when you’re done then, and I’ll see what I’ve got for you to wear.”

“Awesome,” Emily says, and she means it. 

*

It makes perfect sense for it to play out like this: Kelley pulls a soccer ball out of seemingly nowhere (Emily’s not surprised, even less so by all the grass stains and worn stitching around it), promises Emily that they’ll kick it around a bit to keep themselves warm, and then aims it directly at her face before acting completely innocent. 

“There was no reason at all for you to kick that high!” Emily cries out as Kelley laughs loudly. “You probably left a bruise or something!”

Kelley’s having a hard time straightening up, her laughter keeping her bent over with her palms braced on her thighs, and Emily scowls at her before turning away to capture the ball again. The snow crunches under her feet - there’s not a whole ton of it where they are in the courtyard of Kelley’s building, which she’d been warned was mostly used by people letting their dogs out and to beware of yellow snow - but there’s enough for Emily to need to lift her knees a little higher than she normally would while walking. 

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Kelley calls out after it, and it feels like too much in the quietness of the area, a little too exuberant, but Emily doesn’t mind. “I really am, swear! I was aiming more for like your chest more than your head.”

“I demand a penalty,” Emily shouts back at her, corralling the ball with her feet and angling herself to take the shot. They haven’t set up boundaries, haven’t had so much as a discussion about what the plan is here, hadn’t gotten a chance to before Kelley had nailed her in the forehead, but Emily will be damned if she lets Kelley get away with this. 

“Fine,” Kelley says, and Emily kicks, _hard_ , but the snow makes it difficult and it almost kind of bounces before coming to a complete halt approximately midway between them. 

“Oh my God,” Kelley says, and it’s like time freezes for a second, the two of them looking at each other like they’re not entirely sure what’s just happened. Emily is mildly embarrassed - she’s played in the snow before, only she can’t quite remember if she’s ever played with a solid several inches on the ground - and an unnaturally long pause passes before she jumps into action, knees awkwardly high as she runs for it. 

She runs for the ball but Kelley starts moving just about as soon as she does, and it’s not much of a head start but Emily takes advantage of it and throws her body over the ball like a complete idiot, because it makes sense in her head but she’s unprepared for the consequences of the action. There’s a ball half in her stomach and half in the snow, but the cold feels good against her face and her still-throbbing forehead and she’s too lost in the sensation to brace herself before Kelley throws herself on top of her. It’s weird, how Kelley’s body crosses over hers at a forty-five degree angle, one knee digging into her shoulder while an elbow lands in the meaty part of her calf.

“I’m going to kill you,” Emily says, and the weight of Kelley’s body on top of hers is enough that she can’t seem to move at all, can’t make a move to get up from the ground. “I’m going to bury you alive in the snow, and make it look like an accident.”

“I can’t hear you,” Kelley says, collapsing entirely and strangely lessening the pressure she’s exerting on Emily. “But I’ll have you know - I’ve got a note in my coat pocket that says, _Emily did it._ ”

“No, you don’t,” Emily says, and she struggles to get up, to find resistance in the snow beneath her and push up and shove Kelley off of her. “You don’t think that far ahead.”

“I always carry it with me when we’re together,” Kelley says, and she must finally understand what Emily is trying to do, as she rolls off and to the side. “You’re threatened to kill me so many times, I’ve got to be prepared.”

“You’re insane,” Emily tells her, and Kelley army-crawls up alongside her until they’re shoulder to shoulder. Kelley looks over at her and Emily forgets about getting up, about trying to take advantage of the fact that Kelley is down so she can take control of the ball and score a well-deserved penalty. 

“Yeah, but you like it,” Kelley says cheekily. Emily can’t help the way she smiles, because Kelley looks surprisingly warm considering the circumstances, and she doesn’t have anything to say in response. Instead of forcing any words out, instead of awkwardly fumbling for something just for the hell of it, she remembers that this is supposed to be relaxing and fun, and does her best to embrace the quiet of the courtyard. 

She almost expects Kelley to say something to follow up, to add on to her previous statement or even to change the subject just to fill the air between them, but she doesn’t. It’s unlike her, the way she just looks at Emily with her funny smile (Emily can’t decide whether it’s funny because it’s lingering for too long, or because it feels like there’s too much eye contact, or what - she just knows that it leaves her feeling funny inside) and doesn’t speak, but Emily doesn’t mind. The world seems to boil down to Kelley’s apartment complex and yesterday she might have lost her nerve over it all, might have run away and maybe awkwardly moved things in a different direction to save them herself the discomfort, but now it’s different. 

The silence is different, and Emily wants to blame the snow. 

There’s something about it all that’s haunting in a way, almost ethereal and otherworldly as they both lay in the snow, undoubtedly slowly soaking through their pants (in fact, Emily can nearly feel the way it’s sinking into the front of her thighs, and she knows that if they stay like this for much longer she’ll grow numb). It adds an element to their company that Emily wasn’t expecting to relish in, but she does just that. And even though she can’t read Kelley’s mind, and she’s always been a little hard to understand, Emily thinks that maybe she’s enjoying this too. 

It’s several long moments later, and Emily only speaks because it feels just as comfortable to do so as it would not to. 

“Do you want to build a snowman?”

Kelley laughs, and maybe the holiday spirit is getting to Emily in a concerning way, but it’s almost tinkling, much more delicate than Kelley’s usual laugh, but just as satisfying. 

“I didn’t know you were a _Frozen_ fan,” Kelley teases, and Emily feels her cheeks stretch with the impact of her grin as she manages to regain her footing and slowly pull herself upright. 

“Oh, totally,” Emily says,, both of them dusting snow off of their fronts. “I don’t exactly have magic powers, but what do you think about doing it the old fashioned way? Since soccer doesn’t seem like it’s going to work out too well, at least not as long as the snow isn’t melting.”

“Well,” Kelley says far too thoughtfully, “I guess I might have a carrot upstairs.”

“Perfect,” Emily says. “I want to be able to take a picture of one.”

“You’re going to be militant about this, aren’t you?” Kelley asks rhetorically. “I’m regretting this already.”

But Emily doesn’t care because she wants a picture of a snowman as tall as she is, and there’s enough snow to make it happen, so she crouches down to begin to form a snowball. 

“You’re going to make sure it looks perfect,” Kelley is still going on, and Emily’s fingers are so cold that they’re almost burning (they hadn’t been able to find any gloves, but she doesn’t care enough to let it stop her) but she’s determined enough that it’s not long before she’s got something slightly misshapen in her hands that vaguely resembles a snowball. 

“This isn’t perfect,” Emily refutes, holding it up above her for Kelley to see. 

“You’re still in the beginning stages, it doesn’t matter yet,” Kelley says while examining the ball, and she looks like she’s about to snatch it before Emily quickly pulls it away. 

“No way, you get your own started,” Emily says. “I’ll even be nice, and let you work on the head or something, it doesn’t have to be too big.” 

It’s when she’s back to rolling it on the ground, trying to pack some more snow in around it, that suddenly - 

It’s _freezing,_ absolutely bone-cold, and it’s dripping down her back. 

“Holy shit,” Emily says, jumping up and pulling at her borrowed clothes, at the jacket and hoodie combination she’d donned in the hopes of avoiding frostbite. “Holy shit, Kelley! Did you just shove snow down my back?”

There’s adrenaline pumping her veins and her heart is racing, but for once it doesn’t feel bad - it feels energizing, like a spark, and she’s not able to properly think about that, but it’s true. 

“Maybe,” Kelley says, and she’s wearing a guilty smirk as she walks backwards, slow and almost in a weird zig-zag direction. “Maybe not.”

“I have snow down my back,” Emily says, and she’s trying her best to angle her arms so she can reach up her back and shake out most of the snow, but it’s already melting against her heated skin and she’s starting to feel slightly damp. “I can’t believe you - is this because I want to build a snowman?”

“Absolutely not,” Kelley denies, but Emily doesn’t believe it for a second. “I just wanted to - ”

Emily spots her oversized snowball on the ground, and it only takes a split second for the idea to fully form in her head. She’s got a decent arm and decent aim (better than Kelley’s, she thinks privately, although it’s certainly something she’s said to her face before), and Kelley’s still running her mouth with all kinds of nonsense when Emily lands it right in the center of her face. 

It’s so gratifying that it’s nearly sickening, the way that Kelley splutters through the snow and hurriedly wipes at her face, and Emily takes the opportunity to whoop it up before Kelley can come tackle her ass in return. 

“Did you seriously?” Kelley asks, and it’s even in her hair, having exploded upon making contact. “Did you seriously have to do that?” 

“You put snow down my back,” Emily says, and she’s so pleased with herself that she can’t stop grinning, and her cheeks hurt between that and the chill outside, but she doesn’t care as she bends down again to restart her snowman. “It could have been a lot worse, I promise.”

“You couldn’t even get close to me,” Kelley says with a snort. “Unlike you, I’m actually aware of my surroundings.”

“Are you saying that I’m not?” Emily asks, and she’s pretty sure she doesn’t have any sensation in her fingertips anymore, but she’s past the point of caring. 

“How else do you think I managed to get all that snow down there?”

Kelley’s terrible, bouncing back from Emily’s snowball with a sort of cockiness that would verge on despicable if it was worn by anyone else but her. 

“I bet I could get you again,” Emily says. 

“Not now that you’ve lost the element of surprise,” Kelley says, and it’s dismissive and challenging all in one, and really, all Emily wants is a snowman with a carrot and a scarf and some sort of cobbled together buttons down his front, but Kelley is making that particularly difficult to achieve. It’s impossible to resist her, especially now that Emily isn’t trying as hard to stand her own ground (there hadn’t been any reason to in the first place, Emily tells herself as she’s yet to be mortally wounded as a result of letting go, of no longer clinging to whatever she’d been determined to hold onto the previous evening), and it’s easy for her to stand up with another half-assed snowball in her loose grip. Too tight and she could crush it, ruin it, she reminds herself, fingers flexing lightly. 

“You don’t have any faith in me,” Emily says, pretending to be hurt with her free hand crossing up to clutch at her chest. “That’s cruel, Kell. Really cruel.”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic, that’s not a good look on you,” Kelley tells her, and Emily hates that she’s not wrong. The whole over the top pouting thing is certainly more Kelley’s territory than hers, she won’t deny. “I see you with that, by the way. Don’t think I don’t.”

She nods at the second snowball, and Emily does her best to keep her fingers from clenching. 

It feels a bit like do or die, the way Emily winds up her arm, determined to get Kelley again - maybe in the stomach this time, she thinks. She certainly deserves it at the very least, but Kelley rages at her head first with a wild yell, and Emily knows she’s waited too long to make her move. She’s being tackled to the ground before she can brace herself, and the sheer impact takes all the air out of her even more than her earlier fall. What could easily be unpleasant (after all, her front side is already wet and now her back is being given the same treatment) is a spiral of controlled chaos, flakes puffing up around them as they land, and a snowglobe comes to mind as she sees bits of white before instinctively closing her eyes. 

When she reopens them, she sees Kelley boring down into her, eyes wide and blinking. 

“Gotcha,” Kelley says smugly, and it’s the last straw. 

She’s heavy and even more cocky than before (which Emily hadn’t even thought possible), and there’s something horribly irresistible about it that keeps Emily from pushing at her, keeps her from trying to get up as she would ordinarily. Instead she remembers the snow in her hand, and she weaponizes it as best as she can. It’s stunningly simple, drawing inspiration from her own misfortune as she quickly pulls at Kelleys back collar and attempts to get the snow down there. 

“No!” Kelley yells, and they’re both laughing and she’s trying to move, legs thrashing about, but Emily’s got a firm hold across the back of her shoulders. “No, stop, I don’t deserve this!”

“You totally do!” Emily shouts back at her, and there’s no reason for them to be this loud but it feels so good to release like this, to just let herself be in the moment and stop thinking so hard. “You did it first!”

Kelley is straight up wrestling her now, got her in a headlock and Emily’s not sure she can breathe very well but she doesn’t even care as she pushes at her blindly, too wrapped up in the moment to coordinate her movements properly. 

In this moment, she’s not sure she’d rather be anywhere else. 

*

After a very intense wrestling session that leaves Kelley declaring herself champion even though Emily is certain she’s come out the winner, due to how Kelley’s beanie is missing entirely, lost somewhere in the snow - 

After Kelley agreed to put all her attention towards building a snowman but ends up making snow angels instead - 

After Emily drags her around by her feet, leaving a deep trench through the courtyard as the snow begins to fall again, everything turning gray and shadowy - 

After a very long and tiring adventure, Emily feels thoroughly soaked and aching, her body crying for warmth and some mild painkillers. She’s got knotted hair that’s falling out everywhere, they still can’t find Kelley’s beanie, and they’d eventually managed a two-tiered snowman that looked like he’d walked all the way to the North Pole and back before Emily managed to convince Kelley to take a picture of her beside him. 

“I could go get the carrot, you know,” Kelley had said, squinting at Emily’s phone screen as she aimed the device. “Make him look a little more authentic.”

“You wouldn’t come back down,” Emily had said, trying to smile but becoming acutely aware of exactly how cold she was and how thoroughly the freezing temperatures were permeating her clothes. “Don’t think I don’t know you.”

She’d posted the picture to her Instagram story, declared the snowman a Timothy and blaming Kelley for his disheveled appearance, and then followed Kelley inside to begin to thaw out. 

Except now, she’s stripped down to her innermost layer of clothes and staring at herself in Kelley’s bathroom mirror as the shower runs, wondering if this is a good idea. 

Kelley hadn’t even bothered to turn the shower off when she’d finished up, wrapped in a towel as she called for Emily and bragged about her water heater’s capacity. 

“Just get in,” Kelley had urged her, running a hand over her dripping hair while Emily had stood ramrod straight, jaw tense as she suddenly remembered why she’d made such an effort yesterday to keep herself under control. “You’ve got to defrost, because the last thing I want is you getting pneumonia or something.”

“I don’t think I’m in danger of pneumonia,” Emily had muttered, waiting for Kelley to brush past her entirely before turning to step into the bathroom. 

She doesn’t know why this is so hard, because it shouldn’t be. It’s been a lovely day (more than lovely really, if she’s being completely honest - she’d do this all again ten times over) and there’s no reason to be so irritated with Kelley and the way she so nonchalantly passed her, undressed with steam surrounding her and leaving Emily feeling overheated despite the fact that she’s still not sure she can feel her toes again yet. It’s better now that she’s in the bathroom with the door closed and locked, urgently needing this time and privacy to recoup before heading back out for another dose of touchy-feely Kelley. 

So Emily pulls off her bra and underwear and shivers as she slips into the shower, the stream almost too hot and insistent against her skin. It should make it easier to focus on the simple act of washing up, of reaching for the closest bottle labeled shampoo and pushing everything else from her mind, but it doesn’t. Nothing feels easier the way she wants it to, because she’s having flashbacks of being in the shower before. 

It hadn’t happened often - when they’d worked out together over the years during the off seasons, it was easy to quickly shower off at the gym before heading out to grab a bite to eat. There had been no point in circling back to Kelley’s, no reason to go out of their way when they didn’t care about having conditioned hair or bodies that smelled like anything other than standard issue locker room soap and whatever deodorant they happened to have in their bags. And then on the days when Emily would be invited over for some FIFA or to watch a game of some sort, she was never sticking around long enough to require a shower. 

But there had been a handful of times - almost more like half a handful, to be honest - during one winter where it had felt like they’d spent so much time together that it was verging on too much. They would go work out together, maybe go on a run, and Kelley would complain that she wanted a real shower, one with superior water pressure and plush towels waiting for her afterwards, and would bribe Emily with the opportunity to take a real shower of her own in order to leave the gym a little faster. So this feels familiar, with Kelley showering first and leaving Emily with enough hot water of her own, reading the labels on the products on the shelf and knowing that they’re about to hang out and relax on the couch together. 

Back then, Emily had been younger, young enough to not even entertain the possibility, the reality of a crush. She’d been too preoccupied with not idealizing Kelley, with making sure that they could stand on level ground together, with measuring every single step she took so that it would become second nature to have things be easy between them. It had worked and she doesn’t regret it, because now they’re so close and she’s glad that they took the time to form the bond that they share, the one that transcends nearby hometowns and similar schedules. But they’re solidly friends now, close friends, and Emily only ever holds herself back from calling Kelley her best friend because she doesn’t know if Kelley would refer to her the same way. 

The crush had been there though, simmering under the surface and tamped down by the desire to be accepted in a way that went beyond simple approval. Emily thinks about it in the dark and lonely spaces that exist in life - late at night when she can’t sleep, when it’s Valentine’s Day and she’s idly wondering what it would be like to have someone to share the day with, when her friends get married or have a new boyfriend and something brief crosses her mind before disappearing like smoke - and it’s nothing that she’s agonized over, not at all, but it’s still there. 

It’s there when Kelley’s in a towel and smelling freshly washed, and Emily’s brain freaks out and forces her to revert back to that carefully measured part of herself. 

It’s there when Emily rinses Kelley’s shampoo out of her hair, wondering if it’s the same brand that had been here a couple of years before and trying to figure out if this is what Kelley always smells like when she cuddles close.

It’s there in the white towel that Emily wraps around herself when she’s done, able to blame the redness in her face and spreading down her neck and chest on the temperature of the shower. 

She doesn’t want it there, but it is. The last thing she wants is her latent feelings springing up, forcing her to confront them, but then Kelley knocks on the door (just like the night before, Emily notes) and jiggles the doorknob. 

“I want to brush my hair,” Kelley says through the door. “You almost done?”

Emily clears her throat, reaching for Kelley’s brush with one hand and twisting the lock open with the other. It feels daring in a way, how she opens the door just a crack, just barely enough so she can slip the brush through and hand it off. 

But of course, Kelley takes up entirely too much space in every room she ever even gets near to, and she works the door open a bit wider so she can grab it. 

“I’ll just be a minute,” Kelley says, gesturing to the mirror, and both of Emily’s hands are clutching her towel with a fierce grip, horror scenarios flashing through her mind of it falling and exposing her. So she clears her throat again before laughing hollowly, hoping that Kelley doesn’t notice if she’s being weird. 

“I’m just going to dry off and change, give me a minute,” Emily says, and she uses her elbows to beat Kelley back a bit. “Use the mirror in your room.”

She isn’t stupid enough to believe that the reason Kelley looks disappointed has anything to do with her and how she’s standing there in a towel, to believe that Kelley’s experiencing anything close to what Emily had been experiencing when the situation was reversed twenty minutes prior, but the thought crosses her mind for a fraction of a second. 

“Fine,” Kelley says, and she’s definitely not pouting because that would be silly of her, but it looks like she could be. “Hurry up - I’m hungry and want your input on what to eat.”

“Just a minute,” Emily guarantees. “Maybe two.”

She closes the door as she says it, but doesn’t bother with the lock as she begins to dry off. 

The thought crosses her mind for only a fraction of a second in the first place, but then Kelley’s not-a-pout imprints on her brain and the thought comes back, tentatively growing thin and shallow roots, like a weed. It had initially only been a fraction of a second, but it was long enough to try to take hold and slowly spread as Emily pulls on the sweatpants and shirt she’d worn to sleep. 

It’s a strange interlude, her time in the bathroom, Emily thinks as she combs her fingers through her hair, knowing she’ll need Kelley’s brush to really work through the mess but wanting a second longer with herself. She wants a second to think about this, to wonder why Kelley doesn’t seem to mind her company like this when she’s never expressed a desire for her to stay the night before. 

She almost brushes it off, casts it aside due to the complications with the weather and the risks involved. The roads aren’t quite cleared for travel, at least not according to Kelley who swears up and down that she knows what she’s talking about, so this all could be dismissed so simply as a show of excellent hospitality. Except Emily isn’t so sure, not when Kelley’s been play-wrestling with her in the snow and indulging her need for a snowman, bringing her coffee and letting them sleep in the same bed. 

The thought is small but growing when she leaves the bathroom to find Kelley brandishing her brush like a weapon. 

“I want to do your hair,” Kelley says, and it’s almost like a demand but with a tender surprise tucked inside of it. “Get it off your face in something other than that dumb bun you like.”

“Hey,” Emily says with a slight frown. “I like my bun.”

“I know you do,” Kelley says, she’s making grabby hands and pointing to her bed, and Emily groans but goes and climbs on up there. “Now be good and sit for me, and I won’t make you eat anything you don’t want to.”

“Assuming you have any decent food up here to begin with,” Emily says, and she feels like she’s waiting with bated breath as Kelley get up and settles behind her, on her knees as Emily can see if she glances at the mirror in the corner. 

“I might have something stashed away that you might want,” Kelley says slyly, and the way she begins working on Emily’s hair is almost too delicate, too careful for someone who can be as big of a wrecking ball as Kelley. “Keep still, I don’t want to fight your head.”

“Okay,” Emily says, and it feels good as Kelley starts to untangle her hair, not hurting like it usually does when she does it herself. “What are you doing?”

“I was thinking I’d braid it,” Kelley says, and her voice goes soft in an almost distracted sort of way, and when Emily in the mirror, she recognizes the look of singular focus on her face. “Think it would look good on you.”

She fits her palm to Emily’s scalp to keep her steady, almost cradling it, and the thought becomes so intense that in combination with the feeling of having her hair brushed, she closes her eyes. 

The thought grows invasive, taking over rapidly in a way that leaves no room for argument. Emily doesn’t know what to do with it, but at this point in the game, she can’t see a reason to try and eradicate it.

*

“Worst Christmas childhood memory: go.”

“Probably when I accidentally knocked the entire tree over. And before you ask, no, I did not ruin Christmas, at least not on purpose. My mom’s favorite ornament did end up broken, though.”

“What did it look like?”

“Well, it might have been one that Emma had made at school and brought home for her - ”

“So it was sabotage, then? Jesus, how old were you?”

“I was only like, seven! And it was _not_ sabotage, I swear. I was trying to hide - I think I was in trouble for something, actually - and thought that hiding in the tree was the best idea. Until of course, I got restless and started moving.”

“Why was it your mom’s favorite?”

Emily thinks about it, screwing up her face as she licks the spoon in hand, the one that she’s been dipping into the bowl of brownie batter in Kelley’s lap for most of the evening in lieu of eating dinner. It had been Kelley’s secret, a box mix tucked away in the back of her pantry, and she’d had every intention of baking it up for them until Emily had stolen the bowl and run away, threatening to dump it all over Kelley’s couch unless she let her eat it raw. 

It had taken a hot minute for Kelley to grab a spoon of her own and join her, but now they’re both sprawled out on the carpet in front of the tv, which they’d long ago stopped paying attention to. Emily’s not sure how she ended up with her back against the couch with Kelley’s head resting on her thighs, body perpendicular to hers and the coffee table shoved to the side to make room for the both of them, but she’s beyond complaining. It’s been so nice, just the two of them, and she might be in the middle of a revelation that feels like it’s been a long time coming and yet is still not quite manageable, but it seems like a small price to pay considering how well things have been going. 

It’s not like any other time they’ve ever spent together before, and Emily is finding that she likes it, and she’s gradually getting the impression that Kelley does too. 

“I think it was her favorite because it was purple and pink,” Emily says, trying so hard to recall the painted orb that had been hung high on the tree, that had shattered and caused her sister to cry upon discovering the shards. “It’s not deep, or anything. It’s not like my parents loved her more than me, or anything. She just had a better understanding of color theory - I’m pretty sure my ornament was orange and brown.”

“That’s a valid color combination,” Kelley offers up, dipping her spoon back in the bowl and barely coating the back of it before lifting it back to her mouth. 

“If you’re a sports team, maybe,” Emily says, and Kelley chuckles in a way that makes the bowl wobble from side to side despite her hold on it. “I mean, mine broke too, but my mom wasn’t too torn up about it. Let’s face it, those aren’t exactly colors you want on a tree.”

“So your family is big on the whole homemade ornaments thing?” Kelley asks, and Emily doesn’t look away as she watches Kelley stick out her tongue to lick a wide stripe up the back of her spoon. 

“Um,” Emily says, fumbling for words, “yeah, I guess. We made a ton of them when we were kids, and we never had a clear theme for the tree. Not all of them have made it through the years, so we’ve had to add new ones every here and there. Makes for a bit of an ugly tree, to be honest.”

“Sounds like it has character,” Kelley says. 

“That’s putting it nicely,” Emily says, and she reaches out her hand with her clean spoon, and Kelley angles the bowl in her direction so she can scoop up more.

“No drips,” Kelley says. 

“I remember,” Emily says, and she carefully waits for the batter to stop falling from the perimeter of the spoon before pulling it away and drawing it up to her mouth. 

“My parents always loved having a giant tree with color-coordinated shiny ornaments and tinsel,” Kelley says with a nostalgic sigh, looking off into the distance. “You can picture what I’m talking about, can’t you?”

Emily makes a noise of agreement, spoon fully inside of her mouth as she nods despite the fact that Kelley isn’t looking at her. 

“I kind of hate it,” Kelley admits. “I always wanted those kind of ornaments that you get at Hallmark, you know? The ones that comes from movies and have your favorite characters on them. They always seemed like they’d be a little more...personal.”

“So get your own tree,” Emily says encouragingly. “I mean, you’ve got this apartment, right? Why can’t you decorate it for Christmas?”

Kelley shifts, her upper body lifting and head craning around to look over the apartment. 

“I’ve been decorating,” Kelley says, and it’s defensive but weakly so, like she knows that it’s not really true. “I mean, I picked up window clings at Target at the beginning of the month - I was just too lazy to put them up. And I couldn’t figure out where I wanted them, anyway.”

“Waste of money,” Emily says, clicking her tongue and taking the bowl from Kelley who lets go of it easily so she can sit up and swivel around, her legs immediately draping over Emily’s. 

“I’ve got holiday scented candles,” Kelley points out, head jerking in the direction of the coffee table. “I have candy canes in the pantry, and that one throw blanket is green. That’s Christmasy, isn’t it?”

“Barely,” Emily says, and she loads up her spoon again even though her stomach is beginning to hurt. “Really though, if it’s something you want, why don’t you get it?”

Kelley crosses her arms over her knees, her own spoon licked clean and dangling from her fingers as she seems to contemplate the question. 

“I guess this place just doesn’t seem permanent yet,” Kelley says, and it’s quiet enough that Emily isn’t sure if she’s talking to herself, or if she’s meant to hear as well. 

But then louder, a little stronger - 

“It’s like I don’t come back here enough to call it home. I’ll call Georgia home, and whenever I fly into Atlanta I say I’m headed home - but this place doesn’t have the memories. Not really. I don’t have memories of baking cookies or hanging stockings or laughing so hard that I feel like I can’t breathe.”

It’s unexpectedly vulnerable, and when Kelley glances at her, Emily does her best to meet her eyes with an appropriate amount of sympathy without seeming pitying. Because really, it would be the same for her if she had a place in the area to come back to during the off-season. She imagines it’s similar to how she feels about her place in Portland, so she nods once (this time, Kelley can see it) and then chooses her words with a reasonable degree of care. 

“I can understand, I think,” Emily says, and her spoon is dripping large amounts of batter back into the bowl as she waits to eat more. “Like how when I get back to my apartment in Portland, no one is there while I’m gone. I come back and the lights are off and everything is empty, exactly like how I left it.”

“Yeah,” Kelley says, and there’s something in the way she’s looking at her that makes Emily feel like she’s nailed whatever it is Kelley was thinking of, and it feels good to get it right. “Yeah, like how the air is a little stale and the place is a little too cold. On one hand you like that you have a place that’s all yours, but you kind of wish that it didn’t feel so devoid of life.”

“Exactly,” Emily says, and she hadn’t expected to relate so intensely, but she likes feeling like they’re on the same page in any capacity, even if it’s about how lonely it can be to live alone. “That’s probably why I won’t get a place here any time soon.”

“That’s why you don’t have a problem treating my apartment like it’s your second home here, huh?” Kelley jokes, and the air shifts back to something a little more lighthearted, something more like what it had been before when they were trading childhood Christmas stories. 

“Is this about me washing the dishes?” Emily asks. “Because really, if I did that for anyone else, they’d be asking me to move in.”

“If that what you’re angling for?” Kelley asks, and she’s leaning back on her elbows and Emily is smiling around the spoon that she shoves in her mouth. “A permanent invitation?”

“Would I get one?” Emily asks, and she’s just joking like Kelley is, the words comically muffled as the spoon stays pressed to her tongue, but they seem oddly serious in a way that doesn’t affect the overall feel of the room. It’s peculiar how they can manage that, how Kelley can respond in a way that doesn’t let Emily feel awkward about it, but she likes it. 

“Maybe,” Kelley says, humming and tapping her fingers against the carpet. “If you could keep me entertained. I’m bored.”

Emily pulls the spoon clean out of her mouth, the silver glinting in the light of the burning candles. 

“Is brownie batter not enough to keep you occupied?” 

“We’re not all you,” Kelley says, wearing a look of mild disgust and fascination. “What are you, like twelve?”

“Yeah,” Emily answers. “Totally, I’m twelve. What do you want to do then?”

“Let’s kick the ball around in the hall,” Kelley says, face brightening in a devilish way. 

“You know, normally I would agree to that fantastic idea, but I’m gonna have to veto you,” Emily tells her. 

“Why?” Kelley asks, predictably pouting. 

“Because I’ve heard rumors about the kind of damage you can do with a hallway and a ball,” Emily says. 

“They’re not rumors,” Kelley says proudly, squaring her shoulders and sitting up a little higher. 

“Exactly,” Emily says, knowing that Kelley’s cabin fever must be really bad if she’s the one taking on the role of voice of reason. “Do I need to suggest something, or are you going to control yourself and refrain from bringing up strip poker again?”

“Well now, you’re the one bringing it up,” Kelley says, and Emily pretends like she’s about the dump the remaining batter on the floor before Kelley frantically sits up, rescuing the bowl and reaching around her to sit it on the table along with their spoons. “You’re awful, you know that? Brownie batter in my white carpet is like, my worst nightmare. I don’t even know why I trusted you with it in the first place.”

“What was the alternative, making me eat it over the sink?” Emily asks before catching Kelley’s contemplative expression. “Okay, no. I won’t be eating anything over the sink just because of you and your weird obsession with keeping this place clean.”

“You’ll understand when you actually start funding your own living space,” Kelley says. 

“Who do you think pays for my shit in Portland?”

“Your mom,” Kelley says, leaning away when Emily reaches out to swat at her. “Okay, okay, seriously. We could go back to the photo albums.”

“Do you want to?”

Kelley pulls a face, head tilting to the side. 

“Not really. I’m not that tired yet.”

“No more afternoon coffee for you,” Emily decides. “You’ve already braided by hair - you could let me braid yours.”

“I’d rather not be scalped, thanks,” Kelley scoffs. “You’d rip it all out, I’ve seen you in action before.”

“Rude,” Emily comments swiftly. “We could make a blanket pile here, put on some more cheesy Christmas movies. You got any popcorn?”

“That’s...actually not a bad idea,” Kelley says. “I don’t have popcorn, but camping out in front of the tv kind of brings me back to elementary school years. Every birthday party I went to had a million girls in sleeping bags arranged in the living room like Tetris.”

“That’s got to be a universal experience,” Emily says. “Or at least a Georgia thing because I used to do the same thing, even in middle school.”

“One time we actually camped out in someone’s backyard,” Kelley shares. “Like, with a tent and everything. Except there were a lot of mosquitoes and I’m pretty sure we ended up back inside by midnight.”

“That sounds sick,” Emily says as she mentally bookmarks that idea, and she’s got no idea where or when she’ll make it happen, but it sounds like a ton of fun. “One time a couple of friends and I tried to make a pillow fort, but we had no concept of architecture at the time - I say that as if I do now, which is so not the case - so it kept falling down onto our faces.”

It’s impossible to miss, the way she can visibly see the cogs turning in Kelley’s head, physically manifesting in the way she grins too widely, as if she’s the Grinch coming up with a sinister plan. Emily feels like she knows what’s coming, like she knows Kelley well enough to anticipate what she’s about to say, and yet she’s still thrown when Kelley opens her mouth and says:

“I want to build a blanket fort.”

“Excuse me?”

“A pillow fort, blanket fort, whatever you want to call it,” Kelley says, and she’s sitting up and fulling leaning in, wrapping an arm around Emily’s shoulder and pulling their heads way too close together. It’s almost panic-inducing, because Kelley is right in front of her and Emily can smell the chocolate on her breath and the shampoo in her dried hair, but she stays strong and just meets Kelleys eyes with a steely look. 

“I think you’re the one who’s twelve,” Emily says. 

“Come on,” Kelley says, and she’s whining when she pushes her head into the crook of Emily’s shoulders, nearly fully in her lap at this point. “It will be fun, I promise. I’ll make it worth your while.”

Emily isn’t sure of what makes her do it, but she brings her arm up around Kelley’s back to hold her there, to steady her and keep her from moving. She would swear that Kelley almost exhales into it, comfortably nestled in the crook of her elbow and breathing loudly. Maybe it’s not that loud, maybe it’s just that the rest of the room is so quiet that it’s all that Emily can hear, but either way it’s remarkable how natural the moment seems - so natural that she forgets to respond. 

“Is that a yes?” Kelley asks, lifting her head enough to glance up at Emily before replacing it back down. “Are you giving into me?”

“Is it really giving in if I basically came up with the idea?” Emily questions, and Kelley rockets up and out of her arms with a gigantic smile on her face, immediately bustling around the room and giving Emily the opportunity to collect herself. She just observes, legs drawn up so she can rest her chin on her knee and watch as Kelley gets the bowl and spoons back to the kitchen and begins hauling the coffee table even further away to give them as much room as possible. 

“Are you going to help?” Kelley asks, and she’s not even close to breaking a sweat as she rests one hand on her hip and uses the other to wipe some nonexistent perspiration from her brow. 

“You look like you’ve got it pretty under control, to be honest,” Emily says, and while she can’t exactly predict how Kelley is going to react, she feels like she knows her well enough to have some kind of idea of what she’s going to do. Kelley doesn’t disappoint though, coming over to stand in front of Emily with outstretched hands as she places one foot on either side of her legs. 

“Please?” Kelley asks, her lower lip jutting out in a way that for once, Emily doesn’t want to laugh at. “Will you please do this with me?”

And really, how can she say no to that?

She still groans though, making a show of reluctantly accepting Kelley’s helping hands and there’s something about this that makes her feel good, makes her feel like she could survive on Kelley’s reactions alone. It’s not often that Kelley makes any one thing her sole focus, often split in a million different directions with a thousand obligations and flights booked back to back, but in this slice of time (and the last twenty-four hours too, if Emily is going to be completely honest with herself) she doesn’t appear to be thinking about anything else besides being together. 

It’s something that Emily contemplates maybe a little too much as she lets Kelley haul her ass off the floor, setting her to work and demanding she pull the pillows from the bed and find the extra set of sheets in the linen closet. She wonders if Kelley’s got anything that she’s missing out on because of this, but knows her well enough to know that she’d hear about it if she did. Still though, Emily comes back out to the living room and dumps everything she’s collected in their designated fort space, and says - 

“Did you just happen to have these days free?”

It’s unusually direct, especially coming from her, and it’s obvious that it catches Kelley off guard. She’s in the middle of trying to pull the cushions off her couch, and she pauses with her back still facing Emily. 

“Um,” Kelley says slowly, in the way that someone does when they’re trying to find the space in their brain to handle two equally important tasks at once, and Emily only knows this because she’s done it herself in Kelley’s presence too many times to count. “What do you mean?”

Emily just shrugs and surveys the supplies they’ve gathered so far, trying to cobble together some sort of visual game plan. 

“Do you have tape? Or something to keep the blankets and stuff where we put them?”

Kelley’s preoccupied with her battle against the couch, amassing a pile of cushions as she attempts to answer. 

“There might be some in a kitchen drawer if you want to check,” Kelley says, struggling to get the second to last one. “I should still have some left over after wrapping your present yesterday. What did you mean before?”

Emily goes to the kitchen to look for some tape (hopefully duct, but she’ll settle for Scotch if she must) and takes a second before repeating herself, before clarifying. 

“Like, today. I know you planned on me coming over yesterday, but what about today? What about tomorrow, don’t you have anything to do?”

Kelley straightens up, pushing her hair out of her face and looking at Emily with amusement. 

“Are you calling me a loser for not having any plans?”

“No,” Emily says quickly. “I mean, it’s not like I have any either!”

“I’m just messing with you,” Kelley says, grinning and explaining herself in a way she usually wouldn’t bother with. “Am I not allowed to have some free time? Not allowed to fit you in my schedule?”

“I’m just asking,” Emily says, careful to not let it sound too defensive as she unearths some packing tape in the depths of a junk drawer. “You’re just pretty busy most of the time, always jetting off somewhere. I was just curious.”

“Nah, not now,” Kelley says with a shake of her head. “I thought I’d let myself enjoy the holidays. It’s not often that we get the chance to just relax, you know?”

Emily’s not sure that she does, because lately she’s been feeling more stressed and stretched thinner than during the rest of the year. She knows that it’s partly her fault because she hasn’t been managing it the best that she could, and this time alone together is starting to warp her perception of the outside world, but she really can’t relate at all. 

“I’m trying to relax,” she admits, joining Kelley and presenting the tape to her like it’s some kind of prize, like it’s a crown she’s being gifted. “Alright, you ready to get this show on the road?”

“Beyond ready,” Kelley says, and there’s a fair bit of arguing about where to set up the perimeter of the fort, but it seems to change the subject entirely and Emily is grateful for that. She’s grateful that Kelley doesn’t seem to poke any further at her comment, ask for her to elaborate on what it means that she’s only “trying” to relax. Instead, Kelley rags on her for suggesting that they build a double decker fort and agrees to use the front of the couch as support, and it’s a teambuilding exercise that Emily is seriously thinking about suggesting to the coaches when they’re at camp next. 

“Okay, I need another piece of tape,” Emily says, brows furrowed with so much concentration that it nearly hurts as she stretches taut the blanket that they’re layering over the sheet that’s acting as their primary fort roof. “Or else it’s going to dip in the middle.”

The roll of tape that Kelley tosses at her nearly hits her in the face - again. 

“Okay, you must hate my face or something,” Emily tells her, poking her head up above the couch cushion fort wall. “Seriously, what’s up with that? Either you have the worst aim in the world, or the most spectacular.”

“Definitely the second one,” Kelley says, groaning as she gets up from her side of the fort. 

“So you really do hate my face then? Also I can’t rip this myself, you’re going to have to help me.”

“I know, I know,” Kelley says, circling around and sitting down next to her, legs crossed as she figures out the tape situation. “And I like your face well enough, stop victimizing yourself.”

Emily snorts, taking the piece of tape she’s handed and using it to affix the blanket in the proper place. 

“I’m not victimizing myself,” she says, rolling her eyes as she makes sure that things aren’t about to fall apart. “You’re the one who keeps trying to hit me right in the moneymaker.”

That sends Kelley into a fit of giggles, and Emily grins proudly as she uses her newly freed hands to rip off more tape and strengthen their fort. 

“Hardly what I’d call it, but okay,” Kelley says, getting up again. Emily’s busy reinforcing the wall, still grinning, but then Kelley reaches to tug on the tail of her braid, and she smiles even wider and tilts her head to look up and see Kelley smiling right back. 

“What would you call it?” Emily asks, just because it’s the first thing that pops into her head. 

Kelley doesn’t answer - she just moves her hand up to curve around Emily’s cheek, fingers dragging as she does and it’s too sweet of a moment, much too sober of a moment, and Emily just blinks up at her, not knowing what else to do. 

After what feels like an eternity, Kelley speaks. 

“Why can’t you relax?”

It’s like she’s being jerked back and forth in the best and worst way, Emily decides as she ponders how to reply. 

“I don’t know,” she mumbles, and she wants to look away but she doesn’t want to be the one to ruin this. She doesn’t think she could forgive herself if she kept this time alone together from being everything it could be, everything that her few-years-younger self would have killed for. At the very least, she owes it to that version of her, to let Kelley get close like this, just so she can know what it’s like. 

“Talk to me,” Kelley says, and it’s gently inquiring, almost earnest in a way. “What’s been up with you?”

“Nothing,” Emily denies, but it’s useless.

“I know that’s not true,” Kelley says, and Emily hates when she decides to be perceptive like this. It’s like she can turn it on and off when it suits her, and Emily wonders if maybe it’s always there and it just depends on whether or not she wants to share what she’s seen. “You were weird all of yesterday and you’re getting weird again. Don’t do that - don’t get weird on me again.”

Emily forces herself to hold Kelley’s gaze, forces herself not to look away from how stripping it feels all of a sudden. 

“I’m trying to relax,” she promises, hoping it’s enough. “I really am.”

Kelley looks like she’s studying her and it instills the most unique sort of vulnerability in Emily. 

“I am,” Emily says, insistent but not aggressive. “I wasn’t planning on being here this long, so I kind of had to mentally adjust. And we already talked about how stressful the holidays can be, so that’s a factor.”

“I don’t want this to be a stressful thing for you,” Kelley says, and there’s a shadow of doubt hidden there than Emily can only just barely see, something unsure and almost retreating.

“It’s not,” Emily says, and she nuzzles into Kelley’s hand, letting her eyes close for a beat too long before she realizes that her pulse feels too slow, too calm, as it thumps along next to where Kelley’s thumb is. “Really, I just had to adjust my perspective on it, and now I’m okay. I’ve had a good day with you.”

“Good,” Kelley says, the corners of her mouth tucking up in the sweetest way, and Emily tries to remember if this feeling inside of her is what she was ignoring those years before, back when she was determined to prioritize everything except for her own emotions, her own affections. 

But then Kelley’s hand slips away and she’s stepping away - not far, just enough so that they can’t reach out to each other - and Emily feels like something has been put on a back burner, to be picked up at another time. 

But she’s okay with that, so she clears her throat and looks at their handiwork. 

“I think we’re about done here,” she says. “Want to test it out?”

“We have to stock the interior,” Kelley says decisively. “Once I’m in there, I don’t want to come out.”

“I’m hoping it gets warm in there,” Emily says half under her breath as she stands, joints aching slightly from how long she’s been on the floor. “Since you insist on keeping this apartment colder than an igloo.”

“Hey,” Kelley says, stopping in the middle of collecting the extra pillows and blankets to put on the most offended face. “Just because you have poor circulation - ”

“My circulation is fine, you’re just a furnace,” Emily says, and she helps Kelley get everything in their fort. 

“I don’t want to hear about it when you’re cold and you need me in the middle of the night,” Kelley tells her, crawling on her hands and knees until only her feet poke out. “Are you coming?”

Emily sighs, exasperated but in the fondest way, and follows Kelley in. 

It’s still cool in their fort, but Emily settles in against a pillow and finds a comfortable position in which to lay down. There’s not much to see, just a bunch of fabric and Kelley’s tv stand at the open end of it, but it’s like a bubble containing them and it’s precious and she’s afraid that it will pop at the slightest interruption. She’s been embracing this, been going along with it and letting herself have fun and be close to Kelley, and maybe that’s what makes the fort seem so special. 

“Is it still snowing?” Emily asks. 

“Last I checked, it was still coming down a little,” Kelley says. 

“Last you checked - does that mean the last time you looked out the window?”

“Maybe,” Kelley says, and Emily doesn’t even have to look over to see the sneaky grin she’s wearing - she can just hear it. “Why, you want to leave?”

“I have a feeling that you wouldn’t let me even if I wanted to,” Emily says honestly. 

“Do you want me to let you go?” Kelley asks, and it’s got a raw quality to it that makes Emily rush to say no. 

“I’m happy here, of course I don’t want to go,” Emily says, and maybe it’s too much, and she’ll take that into consideration, but she’s done acting like she doesn’t want to be here, like she doesn’t want to be holed up with Kelley like this, like she doesn’t want all of this so badly that she’d never even let herself think about the possibility. A part of her thinks that Kelley might feel the same - that she wants to be here, that she wants it so badly - but rather than find out and be wrong, she just asks, “So we’re sleeping here?”

“Yeah,” Kelley says, “unless you have a problem with that? But I thought that was the whole point of it, sleeping in the fort.”

“I’m just making sure we’re on the same page,” Emily says, and they’re so close, elbows touching as Kelley stops wriggling around. 

“I say we play truth or dare,” Kelley says. 

“I’d rather play strip poker,” Emily tells her, and it’s worth it for the way it makes Kelley crack up. 

*

She’s not sure when she fell asleep - she only knows that she did because she wakes up groggily, feeling smothered and too hot and too cold all at the same time. Orienting herself isn’t easy, not when it feels like everything is closing in on her and her limbs are tangled up with something that feels distinctly human. 

“Em.”

It’s a whisper, but it’s enough for Emily to reach out and hold on to, to ground herself with. She blinks her eyes open, blinks the sleep away, feeling only half awake as she grasps onto the single syllable and branches out from there to figure it out. 

“Kell?” she asks, disoriented and croaking, her throat clogged and scratchy as she speaks. 

“I”m cold,” Kelley says, and Emily can’t even hardly see, the apartment dark with not even the candles still lit for them to see by. There’s a hazy sort of moonlight seeping in through the windows, seeping in through the fort blankets, but it’s really not enough for Emily to do more than make out a vague outline of Kelley’s body as she rolls in too close. The lack of sight just makes all of her other senses hyper aware though, and Emily feels overloaded with sensation as it’s quickly obvious that there’s nothing between them, no blankets or anything besides their clothes. 

“You’re supposed to be the warm one,” Emily mutters, but she’s suddenly aware of the goosebumps sprouting up along her spine in response to a bone-chilling cold. “This is why you need the heat.”

“I put it on,” Kelley argues, but it’s sleep-laden and halfhearted. 

“Higher than sixty five,” Emily tells her, and then it feels like Kelley is clinging to her, fingers winding around her waist as they face each other on their sides. She doesn’t know what to do, her half-awake brain not sure of whether she should move or not. “Go turn it up.”

“But you’re warm,” Kelley whines, face tucked into her neck, and Emily feels like she’s stretching vertically to accommodate her. “And I don’t want to get up - it’s going to be cold out there.”

Kelley’s pressing her toes into Emily’s ankles and it’s a cuddle that they’ve never shared before, front-to-front and resembling something dangerously intimate. It’s kinetic and electric, with how Kelley clutches at the shirt of hers that Emily’s wearing, fabric bunched in her hands and pulling off of Emily’s hips, exposing her skin to the cool air. Where the blankets have gone is a mystery that Emily doesn’t even know how to begin to solve but she’s feeling awake in the most startling way, her brain whirring to life as her body fights to catch up. 

“Kell,” she says softly, hands finally moving and she doesn’t know where to put them, can’t see or guess where Kelley’s body parts are. She figures she can go for the limb that’s currently around her own waist, and hands on what feels like a forearm. “Kell, we’re gonna freeze if you don’t. I can’t feel my toes.”

“But I don’t want to,” Kelley says against Emily’s skin, and it’s like fire meeting ice, and she doesn’t know how to stand it when Kelley starts wiggling against her. “Too cold.”

She’s just trying to get warm again, trying to get comfortable - that’s what Emily tells herself, unsure of what time it is or how long they’ve been asleep or anything other than the fact that Kelley’s hips are shifting and their legs are all tangled together, bodies doing their best to leech as much heat as they can from each other. It’s too much to take and Emily knows it, knows that she should be the one to duck out and turn up the thermostat and come back and make sure that there’s a decent amount of space between them. 

Except being like this with Kelley is addicting, having so much attention on her and knowing that she might never have this again. The circumstances are serendipitous and Emily doesn’t want to miss this, miss out on knowing what it’s like to soak up as much of Kelley as possible, as much as she could ever want. And she can not let it carry on outside of this, can keep it all in the bubble and keep this addiction confined to these couple of days, because she’s been watching Kelley for years, and she knows how it goes. 

No matter how Kelley cuddles or cradles her face or looks at her like it could mean something, Emily knows how it goes. She knows that Kelley is fun and casual and busy and doesn’t have time for her always, and that’s fine. This can exist within this snowy weekend and Emily will walk away knowing what it’s like to have Kelley’s attention on her, and she’ll be fine, and she can handle it, and can let Kelley steal every bit of warmth that she has to offer and it will be fine. 

Her head is messy and desperately trying to organize everything and she slides her hand up Kelley’s arm, up to her bicep until she’s gripping tightly. 

“Stop being wiggly,” she tells her, and her voice is a little louder, a little more forceful, but still rough and hoarse. “You move too much.”

And Kelley pulls back her head, the rest of her staying exactly where it is, except now there are a couple of inches between their faces. Emily can’t see well but she knows that Kelley is looking at her, can just sense it, and it steals all the air out of her lungs. 

She waits for Kelley to say something, to do something, anything besides be stock still and stare at her, and - 

Kelley kisses her. 

It’s quick but blistering, a press of her lips right against Emily’s, and she feels fire split her apart from head to toe. She doesn’t even get to kiss back, too stunned and too preoccupied trying not to burst into flames, when Kelley ends it abruptly. 

Emily doesn’t know what to do. She’s got no idea what to expect, no clue what Kelley is thinking, hadn’t seen this coming from a mile away. All she knows is that she suddenly feels colder than before. 

“I didn’t - ”

Kelley’s voice breaks, and then she tries again, fingers tightening in Emily’s shirt, hiking the fabric up even more. 

“Was that okay?”

It doesn’t make any sense, but she’s not drawing back or apologizing or regretful, and the fire is back in Emily’s chest because this feels like an opportunity, an open window, and she doesn’t want to miss it. She tries to answer, words flashing through her mind but none of them sticking as one of Kelley’s legs wraps around hers, higher, forcing them even closer. 

This might never happen again, Emily thinks, and it’s so beautiful and scary at the same time, and it leaves her knowing precisely what she wants to do right then. 

So she easily finds Kelley’s mouth with hers, eager and open and deciding that if this is what Kelley wants right now, then it’s what she wants too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm tired of reading my own writing so here's to hoping there aren't any giant mistakes here! for those who wondered about the card from the previous chapter, what emily actually wrote isn't as important as kelley's reaction to it. that being said, i hope you like this one! sorry for how it ends, but the next chapter should make up for it.


	3. XXIX

Emily does a lot of thinking. 

In general, that is. It’s not always a bad thing: it often comes in handy when she’s figuring out how to make herself useful in a large group of people, when she’s stuck in sticky situations and needs a way out, or when she’s faced with a decision in regards to being kissed by her teammate. 

It’s not as though Kelley is just her teammate, which is what could make this decision making process so difficult. She could be laying there in their blanket fort, panicking over what to do, panicking over their potentially ruined friendship and team dynamics, just panicking in general over anything and everything - but she’s not. She’s kissing Kelley back, and it’s not simple in any definition of the word, but she’s decided that for the sake of her own sanity during their time together, she needs to get back to basics and start operating like someone who doesn’t overthink as naturally as she does. 

So the basics are this: Kelley is hot and funny and pretty, and she’d kissed Emily first, and Emily can’t remember the last time she was kissed so frankly, so  _ authentically _ (and she knows it was, because there was no way it wasn’t on a whim, and Kelley doesn’t do things that she doesn’t want to, especially if they are on a whim), and she wants more of it. She could be panicking, or worrying, or overthinking this in the worst way possible, but the bottom line is that if she can go along with this and make it through the night? 

She totally will. 

Throwing caution to the wind, Emily kisses Kelley with as much as she’s got (which admittedly isn’t much, considering the fact that less than five minutes ago she’d been half asleep) and is more than pleased when Kelley responds in kind. 

There isn’t a word for how it makes Emily feel, really. She feels like she could pull out a thesaurus and search through it for days and not be able to find the appropriate descriptors - which is fine, because she’s always been more for actions and less for words, anyway. After all, there’s no guarantee that this isn’t a Limited Time Only offer, and she’s not about to miss out on an opportunity like this. 

Emily’s hand is still gripping Kelley’s bicep and Kelley’s hand is still bunched in her shirt, and she’s kind of terrified that if she backs away or breaks this kiss, then the magic will be gone and everything will reset - so she doesn’t. She forces herself to wake up as fully as she can (which honestly doesn’t take too much effort at this point, considering the circumstances and the fact that Kelley’s kissing her back hard enough that it feels like the nerve-endings in her body are all coming to life) and it’s a contrasting sensation, one that leaves her very aware of everything she’s doing, everything she’s touching, and it’s not the worst thing, really. 

Like Kelley’s leg, the one that’s draped over hers so high it’s near her hips, the one that she keeps adjusting as her hand moves around to sweep over the small of Emily’s back. It’s hard not to feel awake then, when Kelley won’t stop moving (she’s always moving, and it’s a miracle that she’s surviving being pinned down in this apartment as long as she has) and finds Emily’s waist and pushes. 

It takes her a beat longer than it should to realize what she’s going for. 

Emily refuses to stop kissing her, and it’s awkward how they have to move together while attached the way they are, but the fact that Kelley doesn’t seem to mind is reassuring. They shift in small increments, stopping to deepen the kiss with Emily only half on her back, while Kelley is nearly straddling the top of her thighs. Her hands start to wander, up and down the length of Kelley’s arms and supporting her as they find a more stable position.

When Kelley finally pulls away, it’s with a kiss-swollen mouth and a bit of a jerk, one that has her hitting the top of the blanket fort and then immediately recoiling. 

“It’s a little tight in here,” Emily says, as if she’s apologizing, and Kelley just returns for a second to press a fast but full kiss to her lips. 

“I know,” Kelley says, and Emily’s hands land on her hips to hold her where she is. “I’m okay with it if you are. Kind of like the grown up version of your childhood.”

Yeah, the last time Emily had done something like this, she definitely wasn’t entertaining the idea of making out with her friends inside of their forts - that much is for certain. 

Kelley must mistake her silence for doubt, because then she says, “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“No,” Emily says quickly, hands squeezing for a second. “No, I want to. If you do.”

“I do,” Kelley confirms, and Emily really wants to bend at the waist so she can kiss her again, but then Kelley is straightening up as much as possible and touching Emily’s stomach, just a light touch with her fingertips, but it’s enough to keep her where she is. Now she really is doubtful, not sure how to proceed, so she chews on her bottom lip and wonders exactly what Kelley wants to do next. 

The words get caught in her throat and she has to push them out as Kelley continues to squirm above her, brushing her hair away from her face 

“Here, I want to - ”

Emily knows she must be blushing at least a little bit as she switches her hands to tug at the hem of Kelley’s shirt, skimming underneath to make contact with bare skin, and it’s barely initiating anything, but it’s enough to have Kelley make a noise of approval as she lifts her hand from Emily. 

“Yeah?” Kelley asks, and Emily thinks  _ yes, a million times yes,  _ thinking that if she’s going to do this, if she’s going to let Kelley sit astride her like this, as if she’s in charge and Emily is here to bend to her will - 

If Emily is going to do this, then she’s at least going to do the best she can to leave Kelley with a memorable experience. It’s selfish, but she thinks too much about how to be good at what she does, how to be the best, and this definitely gets included in that. For a second she gets lost in that thought, but shakes it off in time for Kelley to reposition her hands where she wants them and to respond, instinctively nodding in approval.

“Yeah,” she says, and she might be too eager, at least it’s honest. “I want to.”

They could be a little more explicit, talk through it a little more, but this is still building momentum and Emily doesn’t want to slow that down, especially not if Kelley doesn’t need a whole conversation about what they’re about to do. They both want to be here in the tent together, doing this, and that’s what matters most. 

Kelley’s on top of her and Emily wishes she could see, wishes she could reconcile how this all feels with how it looks, but instead she’s just grabbing onto Kelley’s thighs and swallowing hard. She focuses on how Kelley’s skin feels against her hands, on how her shorts have ridden up to expose more skin and Emily can’t stop the nervous sound from the back of her throat as she slowly rubs her palms higher. Careful not to slide under clothing yet, Emily watches as best as she can as Kelley reaches for her shirt. 

No wonder she was so cold, Emily thinks, and her ears are straining to catch every rustle of fabric, listening intently as Kelley’s shirt drags against her torso ever so slightly. She’s only been wearing shorts and a t-shirt - not that Emily’s been complaining. 

“Shit,” Emily curses, because all she can see are shadows, and she’d sell her soul right about now to get a glimpse of a topless Kelley. Kelley, who tosses her shirt to the side like it’s nothing, like Emily’s mind isn’t filling in the blanks and trying to process the fact that the person in front of her is the same person who’s been her friend and teammate. 

Kelley just pushes her hair off her shoulders, pushing it back and away and Emily slides one hand up, sliding a thumb under the edge of Kelley’s shorts. The skin on her inner thigh feels soft and thin, and Emily wants more of it, more of Kelley under her hands, more of her until it’s all she can handle.

But then Kelley shivers, and Emily hesitates. 

“Cold?”

She’s glancing up - it’s instinct, how she looks down at where her hands are for a brief moment - and she can see the gradation in light framing Kelley’s body, just enough to distract her until Kelley speaks. 

“Your fingers are a little cold,” Kelley says, and Emily goes to withdraw them. She jerks them up almost, but then Kelley is grabbing for them quickly, keeping her from pulling away too much. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Emily says, and she’s glad for the cover of night so that Kelley can’t see how pink her cheeks probably are. “I didn’t mean - ”

“It’s okay,” Kelley assures her, and Emily falls silent as Kelley leans down, leans down so the outline of her chest is even more visible, and Emily swallows again as Kelley twines their fingers together, coaxing Emily into bending her elbows so that their hands are up by their sides. “It’s cold, and that’s kind of my fault.”

Emily kind of wants to run away right now, get up and flee to Kelley’s bathroom and spend an unnecessarily long amount of time fixing her appearance until Kelley has to wonder what she’s up to, but it’s like for once they’re really and truly on the same wavelength. Kelley somehow senses her withdrawal, senses the bits of reality peeking through Emily’s hazed thoughts, and adjusts accordingly. It’s impressive, really, how Emily can see it all play out even as she’s trying to figure out how to leave the tent most efficiently. 

“Hey,” Kelley says, and her voice is syrupy sweet even with how low it travels. “It’s okay. Here - ”

It’s entrancing, the way she brings up a pair of their joined hands, and Emily knows it isn’t playing out in slow motion but the wait to see what Kelley is about to do feels like it takes forever. Her mind spins a bit, trying to figure out what’s about to happen, but she can’t until it happens. 

It’s slow, the way Kelley raises their hands and lower her head, and it shouldn’t be so  _ hot _ , but Emily squirms when Kelley takes the tip of her right-hand index finger into her mouth. 

It’s unexpectedly good, and Emily’s stomach dips as her eyes close for a second. 

Kelley sucks, and the amount of pressure is perfect - not too much, not too little, just enough for Emily to shift the angle of her hips. But Kelley isn’t having it, not with how she disentangles her other hand from Emily’s and roughly nudges at her side. She gets the message and stays still as Kelley plants her free hand on the floor and continues to drag her lips down Emily’s fingers. 

Her mouth is hot, warm and wet as she works, and it’s sending Emily’s thoughts someplace else entirely. Agonizing is the only word to describe it, she thinks, blinking her eyes open so she can see how Kelley adjusts their hands, how she arranges them so smoothly until Emily is supporting her own hand, and moving with her. It’s something that shouldn’t be as good as it is, she thinks, nothing she ever would have thought of, but as Kelley takes her time kissing her knuckles and tonguing between her fingers, down to the sensitive webbing there, Emily mentally notes it as something she wouldn’t mind experiencing again. 

To say the least. 

It’s not sloppy exactly but when her fingers are soaked, when Kelley’s got them sufficiently warmed up and Emily is thankful that she’s doing this with someone who’s so good at working past anything with the potential to be unpleasant, she uses her dry thumb to wipe at the corner of Kelley’s mouth. She wants to say something, but her voice gets caught and then Kelley’s grasp is encircling her wrist and gently shifting it down, and the possibility goes out the window. 

Of course Kelley doesn’t have a problem being direct like this, Emily thinks as she lets the palm of her hand be directed down, trailing between Kelley’s chest. She wishes she could linger there, could take her time exploring and getting up close and personal with every bit of Kelley, but she’s still unsure of how to proceed - so she doesn’t mind the direction, especially not when she’s still struggling to find her footing here. It’s not a lack of confidence as much as it is not wanting to fuck up, and well, when Emily ghosts her hand fingers over Kelley’s abdominals before making contact with a waistband, she’s got a clear enough idea of what Kelley wants to not make any detours. She laments that a little bit, that she doesn’t get to take her time and commit every inch of Kelley’s body to memory, but it’s not like the current option is one that she’s about to steer away from.

“Are you sure?” Emily asks, and her voice is cracked and hoarse and she hates it but is glad that Kelley doesn’t seem to. “I could - ”

She’s not sure of what she means to say, of what she’s offering, but it seems moot since her other hand is pulling Kelley closer to her, until she’s close enough to smell her shampoo and Emily can maneuver all of her fingers under Kelley’s shorts. 

“I’m sure,” Kelley says, and she sounds like she is and that’s scary, because Emily doesn’t know how she can be so decisive about something so new like this. “Okay? You can touch me, I want you to.”

It’s a little awkward, how she manages to shove Kelley’s shorts down her hips enough to give herself room to work with, and it’s a little straightforward but neither of them seem to mind so she just goes for it. She goes by touch mostly, feeling down and focusing on that instead of she way Kelley breathes in, focusing on going where she needs to be and making sure that she doesn’t fuck this up. 

Emily thinks she would rather die than fuck this up. 

Maybe it’s Kelley’s mouth on her, still wet and slippery and coating her fingers. She’s not sure, because it seems impossible for Kelley to feel like this between her legs, especially when Emily thinks about how little they’ve done, about how fast this seems to be moving, and the response her own body usually has. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Emily says, and she  _ hates  _ how she sounds, so self-conscious, even though she couldn’t be more so. 

“You won’t,” Kelley says, and it’s encouraging.

“Is that why you - ”

Emily has to take a giant inhale, fingers stilling where they’re pressed. When she exhales, it’s long and measured as she marvels at how slick everything seems, at how maybe this is really how Kelley is feeling right now. 

“Yeah?” 

Kelley says it so openly, like she’s waiting, patient and impatient at the same time. 

“Is that why you wanted my fingers in your mouth?”

Emily speaks as she moves, fingers flexing and orienting themselves. 

“No,” Kelley says, and she shifts her thighs enough for Emily to pause. “Hold on, I want these off.”

Emily waits as Kelley gets her shorts off, surprisingly nimble when factoring in the limited space they’re working with. 

“No, I wanted your fingers in my mouth because it’s already cold out,” Kelley says, settling back across Emily’s legs, and she’s spread so wide that it takes Emily no time at all to replace her fingers. “And I don’t want that inside of me.”

It makes it hard for Emily to breathe, fingers trembling as she feels, as she strokes along softness. 

“You’re wet,” she says, and it’s meant to be quiet, murmured just for herself, but it’s impossible for Kelley not to catch it. 

“Yeah,” Kelley says, and there’s an unbridled confidence there that has Emily thinking that maybe, just maybe, it’s for her. “I really want this. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to.”

Emily doesn’t know how to believe her, but she wants to. 

“I just want this to be okay,” she says. 

“You’re doing so well so far,” Kelley says, and Emily tries to keep control of her movements as she slips lower, feeling Kelley’s entrance. “Come here - you can do it. Just like you have been - just like that.”

“If I do something you don’t like - ”

And Emily knows she’s blushing, knows she’s embarrassed and is struggling to keep it together enough to go through with this (because that’s how badly she wants this, how badly she wants this experience to tuck away and pull out when she needs it, just to have at the ready). She knows that she’s fumbling and the opposite of how Kelley is right now, but she tries to tell herself that it doesn’t matter, that for some reason Kelley wants this, and she’d have to be a fool to question that any more than she already has. 

So she wants to get it right, even if that means asking Kelley what she wants and what she doesn’t. 

“I’ll tell you,” Kelley says, and it’s so impressive the way she can lead them without making it seem like Emily is incompetant, like she can’t do this on her own. It toes a fine line between aggressive and subtle, straightforward in a way that Emily is glad for. After all, Kelley’s already naked and Emily is fully clothed, and that at least is worth being grateful for despite the considerable imbalance. 

“I want to feel you,” Emily says, and she can’t see Kelley’s expression very well as she begins to slide a finger inside of her, but she can hear the small, pleased noise that falls from her mouth and it’s enough to keep her going. “I want to do what you want.”

“This is what I want,” Kelley tells her, tilting forward just enough so that Emily has to adjust her hand in order to fit in the rest of the way. “You feel so good, you know.”

Then Kelley presses into Emily’s hips with her thumbs, pushing at the waist of her sweats just enough to find skin to dig into, and Emily bites her bottom lip to keep from getting distracted. Kelley isn’t afraid to rock into the rhythm Emily gets going, enough so that it’s noticeable but not too much, just enough so that Emily is spurred on and speeds up, working a little harder and getting rewarded with the slight heaving of Kelley’s chest. 

“A little more,” Kelley says, and it’s not quite an order, but it’s something sufficiently adjacent for Emily to listen to. 

“Another one?” Emily asks, and she can make out the motion of Kelley’s head that tells her  _ yes.  _ She listens, middle finger effortless finding its way, and one of Kelley’s hands moves, brushing right above Emily’s wrist before pushing up, up under her shirt. 

“You’re doing so well, Em,” Kelley says, and it’s a bit of a pant that momentarily brings Emily to the soccer field, to running through exercises and looking to know if she’s on the right track. It’s praise, so easy and Emily knows it’s something she responds to, responds well to, and that in combination with both of Kelley’s hands crawling up her stomach makes her feel like this is actually going better than anticipated.

Her fingers find the place that makes Kelley land her mouth on the side of her neck, open and gasping with noises that go straight to her head before shooting between her legs. Emily knows she’ll look back on this later and wonder how she managed to hold it together, wonder how she didn’t completely fall apart, but the desire to succeed drives her on until she’s pulling out and finding exactly where Kelley tells her to rub small circles. 

“That’s good,” Kelley says, right hand resting below Emily’s sternum, stopping just short of her chest. It’s breathy and she doesn’t stop, horribly vocal in a way that makes Emily wonder if she’s always like this when she’s getting fucked. “Right there, right there, good. I knew you could do this, I knew you’d - ”

Words turn into moans and then Kelley’s burying her face in Emily’s shoulder, into the crook there, short of breath and Emily feels proud and amazed and a million other things all at the same time as she slowly withdraws and lets her hand find a way around Kelley’s waist so she can hold her close. 

“Em,” Kelley says, and Emily wants it to mean something, but she’s not sure what, and she’s got more to think about.

“Yeah, Kell?”

Like how Kelley is so coherent right now, and what’s so important that she absolutely has to say it. 

“Are you okay?”

It’s unexpectedly verging on tender, thoughtful and overwhelming and Emily nods before remembering that Kelley can’t see it. 

“Yeah,” Emily says, and she’s surprised by how hard it is for her to speak. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you?”

Kelley lets out the tiniest laugh, and it breaks the tension just enough for Emily’s arms to relax, for her to be okay with how Kelley is naked and on top of her, for her to let herself enjoy the way that her shirt is pushed up high and they’re pressed together, front to front. 

“Is that a serious question?” Kelley asks, and Emily would swear that she feels Kelley kiss her neck, but then Kelley is moving and she thinks she might have imagined it. 

“I just want to make sure,” Emily says, even though there’s no reason for Kelley to lie right now, even though it’s abundantly clear that she’d enjoyed it on some level. 

“If I was the kind of person who was good at expressing myself with words, I’d have a lot of them for you right now,” Kelley says, and Emily relaxes even further as Kelley connects their mouths and kisses her. 

Emily loses herself in it for a moment, which in and of itself is a major accomplishment. The way she lets herself get drawn into the kiss and holds Kelley tight on top of her, combined with everything they’ve managed together so far, has her feeling more like the best version of herself: the version that’s confident and fun and good at that which she sets out to do. 

She doesn’t mind the kissing, not at all. She’s rather into it, actually, letting Kelley settle one leg between hers and it feels better the longer they do it. It’s kind of remarkable how making out with their hands safely still but still holding each other can make her stomach flip and her heart crawl up her throat. 

Emily doesn’t stay there though, doesn’t let herself think about that very much, and once again it seems like Kelley is on the same wavelength as her because she changes it up just enough to distract her. The distraction is welcome, Kelley pushing up her shirt and cupping a breast before pinching a nipple just enough to have Emily turning her head to the side, kiss abruptly broken as she makes a strangled sort of sound. 

“Hi,” Kelley says, ducking her head to press a kiss to Emily’s neck, obvious this time, and Emily tilts her head further to side to improve her access to the area. “Would you let me leave a mark here?”

It’s like blanking out for a second, while Kelley’s hand keeps at it and her teeth bite, gently, just a test while Emily tries to form a response as quickly as she can.

“Um,” she says, fingers digging into Kelley’s back, feeling the long cords of muscle flexing there. “Um. Is that something you’d be interested in doing?”

“Maybe,” Kelley says, her voice slightly muffled, and it’s the most tentative she’s sounded all night, since she first woke Emily up. “But not if you don’t want me to.”

Emily can’t decide (her first thought is that she’s never been the type to be comfortable with something like that, with anyone who sees her and looks too closely knowing what she’s been up to, but her second thought is that carrying evidence of this with her is too much to resist - this is Kelley, after all, and her wanting Emily like this makes her want to have something physical to remember it by), but Kelley doesn’t give her very long to think about it before she’s sucking slightly. 

“Okay,” Emily manages to grind out, and then as fast as it happened, Kelley is backing away and aligning her face with Emily’s. It’s hard to be certain, but Emily feel like she’s got a mischievous expression on her face. 

“You don’t have to keep holding back on me,” Kelley tells her, and it’s so uniquely exposing in a way that feels good, that has Emily arching her back and pushing into Kelley’s hand as she trails her touch down her side, feeling along the barely discernible notches of her ribcage. 

“What do you mean?” Emily asks, and she’s so turned on, so close to wanting this for herself in a selfish way, in a way that isn’t purely about weirdly impressing Kelley. “Do you need me to do something else? Something different?” 

“No,” Kelley says, and Emily wants to kiss her again. “No, I want you to do whatever you want. But I feel like you’re too in your head. Like you’ve been the last couple days. I’m trying to get you out of that, you know.”

“I know,” Emily says, and it’s so honest that she squirms again, this time against Kelley’s thigh as it’s wedged between her own. “I’ve been trying to, too.”

“So just be here with me,” Kelley says, and Emily wants to, she really does, one hundred percent. “Because I really want to taste you, and I don’t want you worrying about anything else while I’m doing that.”

If it’s possible to die from mere words alone, then Emily knows that Kelley would completely annihilate her, what with how her flesh is burning. Especially with how, as she speaks, she trails her fingers down to her hip, dipping under the fabric of her sweatpants. 

“Kelley,” Emily tries to say, but it comes out cracking, and she clears her throat before trying again. “Kelley.”

“Hm?”

It’s as close to surreal as anything Emily has ever experienced. Kelley moves down her with ease, pressing a curving line of kisses around the bottom of her breasts, and Emily almost wishes her top was completely off, but then Kelley is hooking her fingers in the waistband of the sweats and it’s instinctive to lift her hips and let Kelley begin to remove them. 

But then Kelley pauses with them halfway down her thighs, and asks, “You were going to say something?”

It’s low and sensual, and Emily feels like she’s being stretched too thin in a way that’s simultaneously delightful and tortuous. 

“Just that I am very okay with that,” Emily mumbles, and she prays Kelley can hear her because she doesn’t want to repeat herself. “And I’m here. I’m right here.”

She winds a hand into Kelley’s hair, combing through the strands until she fits her palm around the back of her head. Kelley lets out a tiny moan of surprise and Emily grins despite herself, but it doesn’t last long at all as Kelley briefly sucks a nipple into her mouth. 

“Good,” Kelley tells her, backing off only to kiss the other one, and it’s just enough to get them wet, to cool them and leave them just on the right side of painful. “Because I’ve really wanted to do this, and I really want you to like it.”

“Of course I’ll like it,” Emily says, because the idea that she wouldn’t is ridiculous. 

“I know you will,” Kelley says, and then her hand is between Emily’s thighs and over her underwear with more pressure than she’d been prepared for, and she tries hard not to grind down into it - the last thing she wants right now is to appear overly enthusiastic. “Just don’t feel like you have to keep yourself in check. I’m here with you, you know? I want to know what it’s like with you, not what it’s like with a robot.”

Emily pulls on her hair a little, intending it to be scolding, but Kelley just keeps going down, her mouth traversing over her stomach with little kisses, none of it lingering very long as her fingers rub a little. 

“I am here,” Emily says, and she feels like she’s beginning to sound defensive, so she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes - it’s mostly pointless to have them open despite the instinct. 

Kelley lays one last kiss to her hip, over bone and right above the band of her underwear, and then before Emily can prepare herself, those are gone too and she’s suddenly cold and very aware of how  _ soaked _ she is, something she hadn’t been able to fully realize before, and it takes every ounce of bravery she’s ever possessed to not be embarrassed by it. Instead of being embarrassed, she helps kick off the clothes and ignores the chilling goosebumps popping up along her lower legs. Just because she’d been turned on, just because this is Kelley in this damn fort with her, just because Kelley’s been saying words that seem to have been perfectly selected in order to get her as close to losing it as possible - 

_ Fuck it _ , Emily thinks, as Kelley uses one hand to open her legs a little wider, pushing at the inside of her knee while the other hand glides a single finger through her, audible in the quiet but only just. 

_ Fuck it, _ Emily thinks as she lets herself moan, body opening up and settling into something more suited for this. 

“Good,” Kelley mutters, and without preamble, goes for it. 

It’s all focused motions and chaotic heat, and as Kelley does most of the important things in her life, she gives it her undivided attention. Emily can tell, even if she’s not sure how she knows this, but she can. Maybe it’s the say she seems so into it, pure enthusiasm bleeding into Emily’s flesh and causing her to melt despite the cold, melt into the floor and arch against Kelley’s mouth. She doesn’t realize she’s done it until she already has, and she stills for a moment, an apology on the tip of her tongue. 

“I don’t mean to - ”

But Kelley’s fingers curl up and around, arms hooked under Emily’s legs so they fall open completely, and she lets the words die on her tongue and transform into another moan. It’s a slight fight, an internal challenge to quell the natural urge to restrain herself and measure her reactions beforehand, but knowing that Kelley wants to see her and what she’s really feeling makes it a little easier to just react without thought. 

So she gives Kelley what she wants - which is easy, considering how into it she seems to be. For the first time things feel messy and loose, a little wild but in the best way, and Emily lets herself wind Kelley’s hair between her fingers and push, just a fraction of an inch as she lifts her own hips up. Kelley responds almost immediately, hands adjusting position to press down on her pelvis, nearly pinning her to the ground. 

“Let me do this,” Kelley says against her, and Emily has to strain to catch it, isn’t even sure if she hears it right, but she doesn’t move again. “You taste better…”

“Better than?” Emily struggles to ask, jaw clenching with the effort it takes to speak in the middle of Kelley biting at the paper-thin skin of her inner thigh. The question sends a shiver down her spine at the possibility of the answer not being what she wants to hear, but she refuses to move, not if Kelley doesn’t want her to. 

“Better than I imagined,” Kelley says, teeth scraping, and then she’s back to working Emily over with her tongue and it’s so much, too much, so much that feels so good and Emily doesn’t know how she’s supposed to handle this. 

So she doesn’t, at least not well, not like she usually would. She lets herself go, giving into Kelley’s demands and thoroughly living in the moment and clinging to every sensation, letting it magnify itself tenfold in her mind until she doesn’t know how she’s remained as present as she has. It’s not saying much, not when she’s still gripping Kelley’s hair and crying out when Kelley seems to amp it up a notch, but every little noise she makes seems to spur Kelley on and it’s worth it. 

It’s worth having Kelley see her like this, as close to uninhibited as she thinks she’s ever been around her. It’s worth how she feels, like she’s about to split open in the best way, like she would kill to see Kelley in this moment. 

She can almost imagine it, her jaw working hard and strong. She wonders if Kelley looks like a disaster, if Kelley looks the way that Emily is feeling right now, as though she’s rapidly being torn apart even though it’s all so contained and concentrated. It’s big enough to have that kind of effect though, and when Emily unravels completely, it’s a little like she has to coax herself over to the edge and it feels too big, more dramatic than how it had been for Kelley, but Emily’s mind feels wiped clean so she can only see tiny fuzzy pinpricks, tiny little stars as she can’t catch her breath. 

It’s not until Kelley’s kissing her deep and slow and open, that Emily comes back to process exactly how boneless and unsteady she feels. It’s a little shaky and she wants to kiss Kelley back, slip her tongue in her mouth and keep at it until neither of them know where they started or where they’re going, no end in sight, but she can’t find her own presence of mind to make it happen like that. Instead she just commits this moment to memory: the taste of Kelley’s mouth and how different it is, the heaviness of her body on hers, the pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears. A run through all her senses leaves her almost too exhausted to function and when Kelley takes pity on her and pulls away to kiss her temple, Emily whines low in her throat in protest. 

She likes the kissing. 

“That was - ”

Kelley sounds unexpectedly unstable, exactly how Emily feels inside, and Emily just turns her head to the side to search out Kelley’s mouth with hers. It’s nice, how Kelley obliges without difficulty, and it’s soft and short and leaves Emily with just enough ability to say what she’s beginning to think. 

“That was really good.”

There a bubbling laugh from Kelley, tender as it doesn’t quite make its way out, popping before it can grow into something fully formed. 

“That’s an understatement,” Kelley says, and she rolls off of Emily. It’s sad to feel the loss, and Emily can feel her stretching in the space next to her, from the way their bodies knock together at certain points. “You were - ”

“Was I too much?” Emily asks, the worry and anxiety pouring back in, too fast and furious. “I thought you wanted - ”

But then faster than she’d gone, Kelley is back and covering Emily’s body with hers, kissing her hard and this time Emily’s mind lets her eagerly respond, even though she’s a little confused. It’s not until she gets a little lost in it, Kelley’s hand clutching around her neck and her own arm wrapped around Kelley’s waist, that the thought falls out of her head almost entirely. 

“Stop trying to finish my sentences,” Kelley eventually tells her, once Emily’s own lips are starting to feel a little raw. “Let me tell you how phenomenal that was.”

Emily knows she’s blushing, can feel her cheeks begin to hurt as she smiles wide. 

“You were so good,” Kelley tells her, and then her hand slides up to cup her face, almost like she had earlier in the say - a weird sense of deja vu overtaking Emily. “That was so hot, I didn’t think you’d be like that, I thought I’d have to fight you harder on - ”

Without catching everything Kelley says (she’s a bit talkative during sex, Emily notes, a stark contrast from how she normally operates), Emily feels herself preening a bit, grinning still as Kelley showers her face with kisses and holds her close. She’s so needy and Emily feels secretly relieved by that, by the fact that Kelley seems to naturally be providing her with the reassurance she needs right now. 

Because with as much as she’s let go, there’s still a part of her that worries, that needs to be shown and told that it all went well. 

And then Kelley is pressing her hands to each of Emily’s cheeks, fingers splayed out as she looks down and Emily feels stripped down to her insides, feels like everything is out on display even though it’s still dark and Kelley definitely can’t see much. 

“Hi,” Kelley says, and Emily’s heart picks up again, nervous for what’s coming.

“Hi,” Emily says, nearly squeaking. 

“Thank you,” Kelley says, and it’s earnest and sincere, leaving Emily close to speechless. 

“You - I - what? What are you thanking me for?” Emily asks cluelessly. “If anything, I should be thank you right about now, for what you just did.”

“I wanted to do that,” Kelley says obviously, as if this is simple, which it is decidedly not. “So thank you for letting me.”

“Are you kidding?” Emily asks, and Kelley’s warm hands are now skirting up her sides, distracting her momentarily. “What are you doing?”

“I want this off,” Kelley explains, and Emily lifts her head and shoulders so Kelley can work her shirt off. 

“Then can I go down on you?”

It feels a little too brash but Kelley makes it worth it instantly, dropping kisses down to her bare collarbones as she tweaks a nipple. 

“Is that a yes?” Emily asks, and she knows that she’s toeing a line between eager to please and embarrassingly begging, but Kelley doesn’t seem to mind as she slots a leg between Emily’s.

“Maybe later,” Kelley says. 

“Why?” Emily asks, and she knows that this isn’t about keeping score and making sure everything is even and fair, but if there’s something that she can do, that can make her feel good - well, she’s not going to be kept from that. 

Kelley doesn’t answer her directly. Instead, she sits up, hands firm on Emily’s shoulders, tucking around the deltoid muscle there as she adjusts. 

“Could you do that again?”

For a moment, Emily is lost, but then Kelley is angling her pelvis in a new direction, and Emily would swear that her thigh feels slightly damp, but maybe it’s just the perspiration. Either way, the blood in her head begins to rush and it makes a little more sense. 

“Again? But I just - ”

“I know,” Kelley says, and cuts across sharply, only soothed by the twist of her hips. “If you let me do this, I’ll let you do whatever you want later.”

“Later?” Emily asks, and her mind blooms with an idea, with the thought that this might carry over into the daylight, into another night, that she doesn’t have to soak up every minute with Kelley now in fear that she’ll never get to again - 

She’s getting ahead of herself, she knows that. So she just finds Kelley’s hips, squeezing tight and trying to sort through her own thoughts to give Kelley a realistic answer. 

“Yeah, I think I could,” she says, and already her breathing feels short and something in her chest feels too big for her ribcage. “Is that a promise, though?”

But Kelley’s fingers are already where she wants them and her hips are still moving, grinding down on Emily’s thigh. She flexes her thigh in return, and Kelley’s intake of breath gives her confidence that she didn’t know she needed at this point. 

“Kelley,” Emily says, still holding her hips, and everything feels tangled and maybe it’s not good, but short term she’s running out of reasons to care. “Is that a promise?”

Because she needs to know if it’s really going to be like this, if Emily can really get everything out of this experience that she wants, that they can feasibly work with considering the circumstances. It’s hard to think while Kelley’s fingers work in deeper, but Emily’s determined not to let any moment go to waste now, now that she knows what it’s like. 

It shouldn’t be this good, but it’s somehow  _ great _ , and when Kelley finally answers, it feels so fine and vulnerable that Emily almost regrets asking again. 

“You can do whatever you want to me,” she says, and it feels like a promise, one that makes asking worth it. 

So far, it’s all worth it. 

*

There’s a moment, when Emily finally gets Kelley under her (it’s so fucking good, to crowd her in and warm her from the inside out; it’s worth how cold her back gets, how cold her ass feels before she later drags herself out of the fort to turn the heat higher), that she doubts everything, including her own mental fortitude. 

Kelley clings to her massively, so needy as she tucks her head in Emily’s neck and mumbles there. Only a few words are discernible and it’s more white noise than anything, but Emily closes her eyes and takes in a few deep steadying breaths as she faces the realization that they’re going to both need some more sleep at some point in the very near future. After all, they’ve only got a couple of hours under their belts, and they’ve been pretty busy. 

Besides, the fort is starting to get stuffy and it’s not exactly pleasant. 

“Em,” Kelley sighs, and she sounds so small and almost tired, like she’s running through some similar thoughts in her own head. 

“Yeah?” Emily asks, shifting into her side so she’s not crushing Kelley with all of her body weight. 

“So glad we got to try this,” Kelley says, and at first, Emily smiles wide into Kelley’s hair and tightens her hold on her. 

But then, the wording gets to her and she wonders if that’s all this is to Kelley, if she’s just trying it on for fun to see what it looks like before moving on. It’s terrifying, paralyzingly so, and Emily doesn’t even realize that she’s holding her breath until Kelley pinches her side. 

“I think you’re on a blanket,” Kelley says, thick and Emily knows she’s about to succumb to sleep. “Can you move?”

“Yeah,” Emily says, trying to hard to sound normal, like she does when she’s tired, so Kelley doesn’t have any cause for concern. She doesn’t even seem to worry when Emily slips out to mess with the thermostat.

Either it works or Kelley really was basically asleep already, because when Emily army-crawls back into the tent (naked and afraid, she thinks wryly, wondering if there’s a way to spin this so she can laugh about it later) it’s to find her completely knocked out. She has a serious debate with herself about whether or not she should attempt to put some clothes back on, but thinks of Kelley and just wraps herself up in whatever blankets she can locate before closing her eyes. 

*

Waking up to Kelley’s mouth on her neck keeps all those intrusive thoughts at bay, and this time around, the sun is enough to creep through the fort walls and give Emily something to see by. It’s soft and tempered, even and slow as they both wake up and fumble through it. 

“I haven’t brushed my teeth,” Emily excuses weakly as Kelley refuses to let her go, one hand on her cheek and the other on the small of her back to haul her in. 

“I don’t care,” Kelley tells her, and there’s something bright in how she looks at her, something magnetic, and Emily knows she couldn’t stop this if she wanted to. “I want to watch your face while we do this.”

Maybe it’s because they first did this under the cover of darkness, but it feels easier. It feels simpler, and Emily wonders if this is what it had been like for Kelley in the middle of the night. For once her senses stay dull and they take their time, no rush towards a finish as Emily decides that she’s had enough of Kelley’s teasing and wants her own turn. 

“But you look so good,” Kelley pouts, and Emily does her best to kiss it away through her own blush than this time she knows Kelley will be able to spot. Thankfully, she doesn’t get called on it as she takes in Kelley’s freckles and traces lines between the particularly large splotches on her stomach and hips. 

“You look better,” Emily mutters, before dropping her mouth to Kelley’s chest. 

“Wrong,” Kelley gasps out. “You’re so  _ hot  _ \- ”

It feels too kind, too lovely and soft and sleepy as they slow down, as Emily lazily strokes between Kelley’s legs, as Kelley sucks on her neck in return. Just as Kelley decides that it’s her turn again, as she pushes Emily away so she can climb over her, Emily hears and feels her stomach growl, loudly, and it makes her freeze. 

“Oh,” Kelley says, and it’s sweet how she looks torn for a second. Emily knows her face is bright red and she knows it’s been ages since they ate a real meal, but she doesn’t even care, just wants to know what Kelley has planned and keep them in this little cocoon for as long as she can. 

“Come here,” Emily says, pulling on Kelley’s arm. “I want you - you were right, it’s different now that I can see you.”

“It’s better,” Kelley says on the tail end of a sigh, moving down until she can lay her head over Emily’s chest. “Isn’t it?”

Emily is acutely aware of how warm and embarrassed she is, of how hunger is nagging at the back of her brain, but she shoves it all away because from this angle she can see the constellations of freckles dotting down Kelley’s back. 

“It’s much better,” Emily agrees, wondering what’s happened to make Kelley so easy going. 

Of course it’s just a fluke, though. 

“You’re so cute when you blush,” Kelley says, fingers swirling circles over the inside of Emily’s wrist where the skin grows whisper-thin, where the veins are see-through. She prays that Kelley can’t feel her pulse quicken, and just focuses on the freckles she can see. 

“I don’t blush,” she says as flatly as she can, but she knows that Kelley isn’t buying it. 

“You do,” Kelley tells her, fingers encircling before they slide down her palm, and then they’re hand-to-hand and Emily almost can’t believe that mere minutes ago those very fingers had been inside of Kelley, and now they’re clasped together like it’s perfectly fine. “It’s very cute, don’t worry. Doesn’t hold a candle to your stomach grumbles, though.”

Emily groans, and Kelley fucking  _ giggles. _

“It’s not cute,” she denies, but now Kelley is stretching up to pepper kisses over her face and it’s so weird to see this side of her, but it’s also so nice and she likes holding hands and kissing each other and seeing how Kelley’s face changes when Emily goes deeper, when she rubs soft and then firm. 

She likes all of it, and that’s dangerous and she knows it, and yet doesn’t pull away, doesn’t want to ruin this before it absolutely has to be ruined. 

“Do you want to eat something?” Kelley asks when her enthusiasm wanes, once it’s clear that Emily’s reluctance to acknowledge her blush is rooted in something real. “It’s okay if you’re hungry.”

“What do you want to do?” is Emily’s instinctual response. 

“I’m asking you,” Kelley points out, pressing the flat of her hand to Emily’s stomach, other one still tangled with hers. 

“I probably need a shower,” Emily mumbles, because everything smells like sex and she’s beginning to perspire, thanks to all the body heat Kelley’s been generating. 

“Shower then food?” Kelley prompts. “I’m game for that.”

“Yeah?” Emily asks, and she feels like she sounds a little too interested in that, so she tamps down what she can and tries again. “I mean, do you want to go first?”

“We’ll go together,” Kelley says, and Emily is waiting for her to move up and off of her, heading out of the tent, but she doesn’t, at least not right away. 

“Is that what you want? Is that okay?” Kelley asks. 

“Why does it matter what I want?” Emily asks, and once again, too late she realizes that her tone might not be the one she’s going for. She tries to correct, tries not to be upset with herself for letting her emotions lead her actions, tries to think of the best way to right this, but Kelley doesn’t even give her a chance. 

Kelley just raises their joined hands and for a second Emily flashes back to her fingers in Kelley’s mouth. This time though, Kelley merely brushes a kiss across Emily’s knuckles and lets her eyes close for just a second before looking down with a surprisingly unreadable expression. For the most part, she’s been open and clear with Emily, at least since she kissed her first, and Emily is uncomfortable. 

“Because I care about you,” Kelley tells her, and for something that’s so acceptable and known, her face doesn’t match what she’s saying at all. “Because I care about what you want, and I’m okay with doing what you want.”

Emily wants to cradle Kelley’s face with their hands, to hold her in that way that yesterday hadn’t felt nearly as precious as it does now, but doesn’t let herself. Instead she just nods, more in understanding than anything. 

“We can go together,” Emily says, because this is another thing, another experience that she never thought she’d have, that’s being offered to her on a silver platter. There’s no way she can pass over it, so she leads Kelley lead the way - their hands momentarily disconnecting before Kelley finds her again, and she’s so captivating as she walks, all grounded confidence to contrast with the way Emily tentatively follows. 

The spray of the shower is barely wide enough for the two of them, and Emily feels a rush of cold as she makes room for Kelley in front of her. It’s surreal to be together like this, focusing her eyes above Kelley’s neck so that she doesn’t start unintentionally hyperventilating. Of course, the same courtesy isn’t extended to her. As soon as Kelley finds her footing, she looks Emily from head to toe, and she’s never felt so exposed in her life. 

She clears her throat, mentally scrambling. 

“Can you turn the water a little warmer?” Emily asks, hands coming up to cover her chest in a way that hopefully adds comedic value to the situation. “I’m freezing my tits off here.”

It works, with Kelley snorting out a laugh and turning to adjust the temperature. Things feel lighter, steam filling the space and Emily thinks that maybe she can do this, maybe she can muddle through this successfully, even though she’s really got no idea of what Kelley wants from her. 

“I won’t let that happen,” Kelley says, and the eye roll that Emily hears in her voice is confirmed as she comes back to her, knocking Emily’s hands aside to cup her entirely. It throws Emily, sending a shock through her, and she blinks widely as Kelley seemingly admires her. “I haven’t gotten enough time with these suckers yet, so.”

It seems a bit nonchalant, too casual with how Kelley squeezes hard before letting go and asking Emily to pass her the shampoo. 

“Um,” Emily says, trying to keep them from lapsing into an awkward silence as Kelley lathers up. “Well, the day isn’t over yet.”

“No, it’s not,” Kelley says, giving Emily back the shampoo bottle. “Are you giving me permission here?”

Emily holds the bottle with one hand as she uses the other to tug on her hair tie, slipping it on her wrist before unwinding yesterday’s braid as best as she can while Kelley touches her hip, a brief but firm motion to signal that they should switch places. 

“I wouldn’t think that you really need permission for anything,” Emily says as she gets her hair wet. Kelley looks funny, hair all bubbly and dark and wet - and then Emily’s gaze trails lower, over curves and freckles and pale winter skin - 

Kelley does that thing again where she giggles, and it’s frighteningly disarming, and Emily busies herself with closing her eyes and working shampoo into her own hair.

“No, I don’t,” Kelley says in agreement. “But it’s nice to know that you’re on board, regardless.”

“I am on board,” Emily says, and Kelley does it  _ again,  _ and Emily almost wishes she didn’t have to hear it, that damn giggle. She can’t help herself from saying then, “You seem like you’re in a good mood.”

Emily feels Kelley jab her in the lower stomach with a sharp finger. 

“Switch,” Kelley demands, except there’s something different in her tone from what’s usually there when she’s being demanding. Emily just blinks her eyes open, in the middle of massaging shampoo into her roots as she obediently moves. 

“Bossy,” Emily mutters, and thankfully Kelley doesn’t seem to hear her over the running water. 

“I don’t know what we’re going to eat,” Kelley says as she rinses her hair out, and Emily latches onto the subject change. 

“Eggs?” she suggests. “Do you have any left?”

“Fuck if I remember,” Kelley says with a laugh, and this one is a little bolder, a little more like what Emily is used to hearing from her, and the burgeoning knot in her stomach quickly dissolves and she laughs along. “I’ll have to check.”

“I’m fine with whatever,” Emily says, knowing that as much as she makes fun of Kelley’s diet, she’s hungry enough to eat whatever she can once they’re dried and clothed again. 

“You say that now,” Kelley says. “Also, of course I’m in a good mood. Are you not?”

Emily waits quietly for Kelley to finish, and when they swap again, she waits until she can close her eyes and run her fingers through her tangles to say anything. 

“Of course I’m in a good mood. Does it seem like I’m not?”

She’s not expecting the quick kiss Kelley delivers, a peck on her lips that is more of a touch of two mouths than a kiss, really. 

“It does, a little,” Kelley says, and Emily thinks she must be imagining how tender her voice goes. And then, louder - “When you’ve orgasmed so many times you’ve forgotten the count, it does tend to put you in a good mood.”

“Did they not teach you how to count that high at Stanford, or has it just been that long since you were in school?” Emily quips, squinting through the water at Kelley who immediately pinches at her arm and pulls a face. 

“Okay, clearly I need to knock you down a couple pegs,” Kelley tells her, and Emily grins as Kelley hands her the conditioner and switches with her again. 

“I don’t know, Kell,” Emily says, and something about the indirect compliment has something blooming in her chest, feeling almost a little too big for the shower. “You lost count, so I must be doing pretty well.”

“I said I forgot the count, not that I lost count,” Kelley argues, but it’s a pathetic argument and Emily knows that Kelley knows it. It’s not often that Emily feels like she’s got the upper hand between them, but when it happens, she holds tight and refuses to let go before milking it for all it’s worth. 

“Right,” Emily says, nodding as she watches Kelley, watches her arms flex and reach around to make sure her hair in rinsed clean. It pushes her chest out, and Emily likes watching while knowing that she’s done well so far, done well enough to warrant the way Kelley gets stuck on her words as she speaks. 

“It - it’s not the same! There’s definitely a difference - a distinction, it’s so not the same as losing count,” Kelley says, too loud. 

“Right,” Emily says again. 

“We slept in between,” Kelley defends. “So you can’t blame me for - ”

“For not adding to the count this morning?” Emily asks, raising her eyebrows. “Because unless I missed something…”

Kelley huffs, and it’s so entertaining that Emily feels comfortable enough to guide Kelley’s waist to move her aside. 

“Besides,” Emily says, and it’s a shame that she has to focus on her hair while Kelley soaps up her body, “does keeping count really matter all that much?”

“Oh, have you not been?” Kelley asks, and there’s a challenge there, but also something slightly sour and hurt, and Emily relents in response. 

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” she tells Kelley. “But I’m happy to add to it later, once we’ve eaten.”

It’s a risky statement, one that has her heart picking up pace and closing her eyes as she finger-combs through her hair until it feels squeaky clean. 

“This is nice,” Kelley says, and there’s a hum to her voice that fills up Emily’s chest, presses at her ribs and diaphragm. 

“What is?” Emily asks, just so Kelley can clarify and she doesn’t have to wonder. 

“Being together like this,” Kelley says, and Emily blinks her eyes open to see Kelley standing too close to her, bodies almost brushing and yet not. It feels like they keep repeating the same message in different ways, reassuring each other that this is going well and they’re having a good time, and maybe - 

No, Emily decides, focusing on washing up her own body while Kelley rinses off. There’s no way that Kelley needs any sort of reinforcement here. She’s supposed to be the confident one, the one who is always fine with whatever happens, the one who had been secure enough to initiate all of this and let it happen regardless of what was to follow. 

There’s no way that Kelley needs nearly as much reassurance as she’s been offering. 

“My turn,” Emily says quietly, half lost in thought. 

“Okay,” Kelley says, and she angles to switch spots again, and Emily looks at her quizzically. 

“Aren’t you done?” she asks. 

“Oh,” Kelley says, and Emily feels like she’s missing something, like she doesn’t understand. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am done. You want me to give you some room?”

“If there’s even any hot water left,” Emily says, and Kelley laughs her usual laugh as she peeks out of the shower. 

“Okay, I’m going to dry off and get us some new clothes.”

“How charitable of you,” Emily says, and she’s stuck between wondering if she’s done something wrong and being occupied with getting to finally enjoy the full warmth of the shower to herself. 

Kelley doesn’t respond, and Emily tells herself not to worry. They’re both just humans here, humans who have their own emotions and feelings and aren’t obligated to cater to each other. It takes some effort and a little longer under the showerhead than she’d like, and she’s pretty sure that Kelley has left the bathroom (not that she’s obligated to wait for her, Emily thinks, attempting to believe that a little bit of time apart isn’t a death wish but actually beneficial considering how cooped up they’ve been together), but she manages to pull herself together enough to turn off the water and wrap herself in a towel and smile when she sees the clothes that have been left for her. 

It’s just a pair of sweatpants and a Utah Royals sweatshirt, and Emily thinks back to when she’d told Kelley not to dress her in anything personal, essentially. For a moment she considers forcing Kelley to get her something else, and then she thinks about rooting around for something else by herself, but eventually once she’s toweled dry and poked her head into an empty bedroom, she decides to just accept her fate. Emily puts on the warm sweatshirt even though the heat running through the apartment makes her contemplate needing something a little thinner, and is about to look for Kelley’s brush when she finds her phone charging on the nightstand. 

She can’t remember if she’d left it plugged in or if this is Kelley’s doing, but she spends several minutes responding to messages just so that her friends and family don’t start worrying for no good reason. By the time she’s done, she’s wondering what Kelley is up to and her stomach is growling again. 

So she walks out, nervous for some reason that she can’t quite pinpoint, even if part of her knows that it’s probably because she’s not sure what Kelley wants from her now and whether things will go back to how they were when they woke up, or back to how they were before Kelley had kissed her. It makes her feel funny, weird,  _ uncomfortable _ , because Kelley is sitting on the couch looking horribly domestic with her drying hair resting down her back, turned to look out the windows. It looks like she’s taken the fort apart and put most things back where they belong.

Emily pauses at the edge of the room, waiting for a cue to let her know what to do, to let her know what she’s walking into. 

“Looks like it’s clearing up,” Kelley says, still turned away. “You could probably leave tonight if you wanted.”

It’s like being doused with cold water. 

“But you might want to wait till morning to be safe,” she continues, and Emily can feel her hands start to sweat. “The sun sets so early, and I don’t want you driving in the dark.”

Emily clears her throat, not even needing to talk first to know that she needs to. 

“Sounds good to me,” she says, and she knows it’s awkward. 

But then Kelley turns and the moment seems so fleeting, her smile so warm and inviting that Emily is already forgetting how she’d been scrambling for an escape route, trying to think of a plan to avoid Kelley until morning came and she could safely leave. 

“Come here,” Kelley says, arms outstretched and reaching for her, and Emily forces herself to walk over without her standard hesitation. “What took you so long? I missed you.”

“I’m sorry,” Emily mumbles, standing before Kelley, between her legs. She’s looking behind her at a point on the wall, avoiding her eyes. 

“Don’t apologize,” Kelley says, and she really makes it impossible to stay hard, to stay stiff and insecure and unsure of where Emily belongs in all of this. “Figured you might need a moment, but that’s okay.”

And Emily doesn’t know what to do with that, with Kelley maybe knowing her enough to know when she needs a moment to herself, so she just stays quiet. 

“Come here,” Kelley says again, and she pulls on Emily’s hands with hers. “I missed you.”

So Emily goes, relenting so easily that she’s embarrassed, embarrassed with how she lets Kelley pull her forward to straddle her on the couch, hands clasped between them and Kelley’s eyes boring into hers. For a few seconds the eye contact is unbearable, but then Emily lets herself hear that which Kelley is communicating to her and she tries to lean into this last bit of time they have together before she has to leave in the morning. 

“I was only away from you a bit,” she says, feeling shy. 

“I know,” Kelley says, thumb rubbing against the space between Emily’s thumb and forefinger. “Am I not allowed to miss you?”

“You can,” Emily says slowly. 

“Good,” Kelley says, her smile soft and big. 

Kelley makes it seem so easy, how she cranes her neck up to beckon Emily close, how she lands a kiss square on Emily’s mouth, how she kisses her long and intensely, tongue slipping in while separating their hands so she can reach a hand up under the sweatshirt. It’s almost too natural, too easy, Emily thinks as she revels in this, as she lets Kelley’s hands travel up her bare back and scratch lightly. It’s too easy to match her level of enthusiasm and wrap her arms around Kelley’s shoulders, cupping the back of her neck with a hot hand. 

“What happened to food?” Emily asks during a break in the kiss, when Kelley pulls away gasping for air. 

“I don’t care anymore,” Kelley says breathlessly. “You feel so good on me like this, I just want to - ”

She doesn’t even use her words, just wedging a hand between their limbs to rub at Emily through her sweatpants. 

“After we eat,” Emily says, and it feels like a negotiation that she doesn’t really want to partake in. She wants this, the sex and feeling like if she can get Kelley O’Hara squirming under her, then she can do anything else she wants to. 

“Do we have to?” Kelley asks, and she’s pouting and so good with her hands that Emily momentarily reconsiders. 

But then her stomach is clenching painfully and she internally curses her body for being so mortal at a time like this. 

“We do,” Emily says regretfully. “Look, we’ll eat and then I’ll let you do whatever you want.”

“I feel like that’s something I said to you last night,” Kelley says with faux suspicion, removing her hand.

“Maybe,” Emily says with a shrug, except now Kelley is kissing down her jawline and it’s mildly distracting, to say the least. “Really, though. Sustenance first, and then anything.”

She’s got a feeling that she’ll be game for anything Kelley can think up, anyway. 

“Fine,” Kelley huffs out, forehead pressed to her neck, breathing puffing up against Emily’s skin. “But I’m going to hold you to that.”

They stay there for a moment and it’s nice, all wrapped up in each other with Kelley’s arms slung low around her waist to hold her close. .

For a moment, Emily thinks that this could be nice. She lets her eyes close so she can imagine it, imagine doing this in the future and more weekends like this with just the two of them. It’s too easy to get used to the idea of, the idea of Kelley nestled in and holding her preciously. 

Emily doesn’t want to let go or move; she just wants to pause time to stay like this in Kelley’s apartment for as long is sustainable. 

Kelley slaps her ass then, as much of it as she can reach. 

“Come on,” she says, sitting straight and grinning wide and casual. “Let’s get something for you to eat.”

And just like that, Emily realizes what this is. She’s been all over the place, so conflicted and trying to figure it out, when it’s been so simple the entire time. She feels like she should have trusted herself from the very beginning and realized that this is just Kelley being casual, hard to pin down but here for now and taking advantage of the circumstances. It’s just sex, just physical, just a good time between two friends who can totally go back to normal after this. 

That’s what Emily tells herself when Kelley’s nose crinkles as she cracks an egg, cracking up as Emily makes a joke about which came first, in a desperate attempt to deflect any attention away from her own emotions. 

That’s what she tells herself when Kelley makes her coffee exactly as she likes it, sliding it in front of her and pressing a kiss to her hairline before sitting down with her own mug. 

That’s what she tells herself when Kelley wants to press her up against the front door, crowding her in most impressively and pushing into her sweatpants with a fierce determination that Emily has seen a million times before but will never be able to look at the same again. 

It’s just sex, she tells herself, when she’s flushed and sweaty and unable to hear anything that Kelley is yammering on about, talking in her ear and supporting most of her weight. 

It’s just physical, she tells herself when they move to the bed and finally get to do this properly, taking each others clothes off and drinking each other in boldly. She’s got to be bold about this, when any time could be the last, when Kelley looks like something glorious and feels even better. 

It’s temporary, she tells herself, when Kelley curves her entire body around her, spooning her and kissing the back of her neck. 

They’re just friends, she tells herself when Kelley tucks an arm around her and wiggles closer and says something about clothes being a waste. 

It’s all okay, she tells herself, when she feels Kelley doze behind her, eyelashes fluttering against her back. 

It’s all okay because she doesn’t want Kelley like this anyway, not really. Emily doesn’t want to ever do this again, regardless of what Kelley wants. Any thoughts otherwise were silly and born out of something hormonal, something physiological, out of her control. When Emily really thinks about it, she definitely doesn’t want more than this. 

Emily doesn’t want anything that Kelley doesn’t want to give her, and she’s pretty sure that any kind of relationship beyond this has never been on the table. 

And it’s all okay. 

She’s okay with that. 

At least, that’s what she tells herself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this took forever - my sincerest apologies! sometimes your brain goes on vacation and takes a while to come back and function like normal. hopefully this chapter makes up for that. special thanks to those who keep me writing, without them the wait would have been even longer!


	4. XXX

The room is warm and sunny, and something about the light simultaneously blurs and brightens the freckles on Kelley’s arms as she sleeps. It’s hard to remember why the blinds are open, who left them like that, but Emily appreciates the clear view of Kelley that it gives her. 

Usually Kelley is the earlier riser of the two of them, if only by a small amount, but they’d been up late debating the finer points of what exactly could be considered excessive when it came to Kelley’s traveling schedule and how many miles she was constantly racking up. 

“I’m sure you have at least twice as many as I do,” Emily had said firmly as Kelley nosed at her neck, laying sweet kisses there and determined to start something that Emily knew they were too tired to finish. 

“We’ve been on an awful lot of flights together, you know,” Kelley had murmured. The conversation had been pointless, but neither of them had been ready to say goodnight and succumb to sleep. 

“Yeah, but you’ve got more meetings, and photoshoots, and - ”

Emily had been certain, absolutely certain that Kelley was choosing to ignore all of her extracurricular activities, but Kelley had been more focused on shutting down the discussion completely as her teeth caught the shell of Emily’s ear. 

“And I’m - I’m sure you’ve got things planned before camp, because that’s just how you are - ” Emily had tried to continue but then Kelley had hit a sensitive spot and she was biting her lip, biting back any kind of reaction. 

“Why are you thinking about that?” Kelley had asked a tad waspishly, and Emily could nearly see the pout on her face as it pressed into her shoulder, arms wrapping around her waist. “Why aren’t you just here with me?”

And Emily had been forced to recenter herself, to take a steadying breath and remind herself of where she was and why, and how it didn’t really matter how much she was doing her best to live in the moment, because it wasn’t about to last. 

“I’m here,” Emily had said, relaxing and bringing up a hand to rest on Kelley’s forearm. “I’m here, I am.”

“Good,” Kelley had said, nuzzling further into her like a cat, legs tangling. “I want you here.”

Now it’s hard to shake it all off, and both sides seem to be battling each other as she absently thinks about how beautiful Kelley is like this. She’s trying to soak up these last moments together like this before she leaves, without letting herself get in too deep, get too attached in a way that sometimes she can’t help. After all, she wasn’t able to stop herself from feeling like this in the first place. 

It’s hard, when Kelley keeps curling around her. It’s for Emily to keep her head on straight but she thinks she’s done a rather impressive job, especially when Kelley has a hand pressed to the small of her back, when Kelley is breathing deep and even against her neck, when Kelley is so soft and warm against her. 

She’s so human like this, and not for the first time but maybe the last, Emily reminds herself that this is  _ Kelley _ , and they’re close and just because Emily knows what she looks like when she comes doesn’t mean that anything has to change, because she’s the same person she was before they got snowed in together. Just because Kelley knows how Emily likes her coffee and her eggs, and knows how to build her up enough to let her feel comfortable leading, and jokes about strip Monopoly in a manner that actually has Emily mildly interested in how that would work - 

Emily’s not sure when she brought a hand up, when her fingers began brushing Kelley’s arm while aimlessly connecting the spotty freckles there, but Kelley is suddenly stirring. It cuts her thoughts off abruptly, replacing them with ones that are rushed and frantic, wondering what Kelley will think when she wakes up and sees how they are. And from there, she’s panicking and trying to decide if she needs to move, if she has time left to readjust them before Kelley is fully conscious and can somehow manage to get in a more neutral position. 

But before she can move, Kelley is groaning and turning her face further into the pillow. For a brief second Emily finds it adorable, but mentally pushes the thought off a cliff. 

“Stop,” Kelley says, a grumble into her pillow that’s more of a rough noise than a real word. 

“What?” Emily asks, and that panic that never fully went away feels like it’s returning. 

“Stop thinking,” Kelley says, and this time it’s slightly more coherent. Then, angling her mouth away from the pillow, “I can hear you thinking so loudly. Stop it.”

Emily’s cheeks burn, and she hates that she can feel like Kelley knows her like this. She wants Kelley to know her like this, and to want her like this, but the problem is that she knows she’s not going to be able to stop wanting those things beyond the confines of their time alone together, and that’s just unrealistic. In an attempt to dampen the expectations that she can’t seem to control, that keep growing and becoming more and more pervasive every time they crop up, she shakes her head and ignores how her mouth brushes Kelley’s forehead as she does. 

“You know I’ve been trying,” Emily says quietly, feeling guilty about all of it, about every angle she’s approached this situation from and how none of them seem to be the right one. 

“I know,” Kelley says, and her voice is clearer and gentler as she opens her eyes, head tilting up to look at Emily. “I’m not trying to be harsh.”

“You’re not?” Emily says, and she’s mostly joking, knows that’s clear from her tone, knows that Kelley sees it from the sleepy smile she’s rewarded with. But there’s something true there that Emily slips in with the joke, something that she doesn’t know if Kelley will get. 

But of course she gets it, sees it, addresses it. 

“I’m not,” Kelley says, and it feels like a promise, like something Emily can trust. “I know I can be a little abrasive sometimes - ”

“That’s the understatement of the year,” Emily says, except this time she isn’t hiding it, and it’s worth the risk when Kelley giggles the way she’s been doing, the giggle that seems so small and yet takes up so much of Emily’s brain space, leaving next to no room for anything else in those moments that it occurs. 

“I know, I know,” Kelley says, and she finally moves to roll away from Emily, stretching her limbs, cracking her joints. “But it’s well intentioned. I hope you know that.”

Left behind in the empty space once occupied by her body is a fog of warmth, just barely enough to keep Emily from missing her presence, to keep her still. 

“I know,” Emily says, and then Kelley turns her head to give her a look that is reproachful enough to have her clarifying. “I know - most of the time. Most of the time I trust that you mean well. You just want me present with you, I know. And I’m sorry that I haven’t done a great job.”

Kelley makes a strangled sound, one that has Emily racking her head and thinking that she said something wrong. 

“Just - just come here,” Kelley says, and she’s got her arms outstretched and a wild look on her face, just another one that has Emily feeling like she’ll never understand her entirely. She hesitates, but then Kelley’s making grabby motions with her hands and this is something that she can almost understand, Kelley’s need for physical intimacy. 

Because that’s what all of this is, simply put. It’s a desire to be close to someone and soak up all the fulfillment that one can, and Emily gets that on one level. Even though for her it always seems to be tied in with some kind of emotional investment, she can get that Kelley just wants to squeeze every last bit of closeness out of this. There’s something about being with another person that’s so humanizing, so real and based in a form of need that Emily can’t argue, at least not against herself. 

So she goes to Kelley, with a sigh and a creak from her own bones, letting Kelley guide her where she wants her until they’re nestled together. Kelley’s chest rises and falls under Emily’s head, tucked in safely with her own waist fit between Kelley’s legs. 

“Thank you,” Kelley says, and it feels odd, even as she hooks her hands around Emily’s neck, fingers digging into the tense muscles there. 

“You don’t have to thank me,” Emily says, not even sure what she’s being thanked for. 

“You’ve let us have a couple of really great days,” Kelley says, and it’s like her fingerprints are being seared into Emily’s skin. “This wasn’t all me.”

“You’re the one who kissed me,” Emily says, immediately regretting it. Sometimes her mental filter works too perfectly, never letting anything out unless it’s been approved ten times over, and other times it’s as if it doesn’t exist at all. No matter how much effort she puts into regulating herself, it still happens.

“Yeah,” Kelley says, and it’s a little slow as she continues massaging Emily’s neck. “Yeah, but if you hadn’t wanted it, I would have let it be after that.”

It’s so unique, how Kelley has the ability to both quell her fears while creating new ones. 

“So,” Emily says, her tongue feeling too large and clumsy in her mouth as she tries to focus on Kelley’s breathing so she can ignore the desire to pull away. “So, you would have been okay if - ”

She has to stop and swallow hard, eyes blinking as she fights to control the emotions inside of her. 

“So you would have been okay if this hadn’t happened?”

“I mean, I guess so,” Kelley says, and Emily doesn’t want to cling to every word that comes out of her mouth but it’s hard not to. “You’re one of my best friends, Em. That’s really important to me.”

“Yeah,” Emily says, and something in her chest feels more hollow than it did before. “It’s important to me, too.”

“So I’m really glad that we can have this,” Kelley keeps going, and Emily can feel the sweep of her fingers as she moves her hair to the side, to gain clearer access to the back of her neck. 

“You are?” Emily asks, and she’s not even sure of why because it’s like she’s torturing herself by letting this conversation go on, but she’s latching onto everything she can, hoping for more and yet setting herself up for disappointment every time. 

“Yeah,” Kelley says with a laugh, one that’s more like her public self - her friend self, the one that doesn’t share showers and braid Emily’s hair and make her come like it’s the easiest thing for both of them. “Is that even a real question?”

“Well!” Emily says defensively, her voice coming out in a slight squeak that has her closing her eyes tight and pushing her face further into Kelley’s chest. “I just want to make sure!”

“You think I don’t like this?” Kelley asks, and Emily thinks  _ I don’t know, I don’t know anything right now,  _ but she knows it’s just rhetorical. 

And then Kelley’s touch is ghosting down her spine, and it sends shivers down to Emily’s toes. 

“Did you forget how I was the one wanting to go one last time last night?” Kelley says, and her voice changes into something full of want. “You were the one who forced us to sleep.”

“Because you could barely keep your eyes open,” Emily points out weakly, remembering how Kelley had started whispering in her ear, reaching a hand over her chest to tug on a nipple, enthusiasm dampened by how tired she was. 

“And?” Kelley says, like that shouldn’t have mattered. “I wanted you.”

“I wasn’t going to let you fall asleep halfway through,” Emily says, except now Kelley is sliding her other hand up into her hair, forcing her to look up, to tilt her head enough to make eye contact. She can see enough to make out Kelley’s pout, visible even from the odd angle. 

“But you get me so wet,” Kelley tells her, and Emily can feel any semblance of resolve she might have had crumbling away. 

It feels like Kelley is waiting for a response, but Emily’s finding it harder to breathe and just blinks. 

“If you want to make sure,” Kelley says, “just see for yourself how much I like this.”

It’s a clear invitation and Emily’s chest is thrumming with anticipation, wondering if it’s wise to take the bait, if she should accept Kelley’s dare and spread her legs and make good use of these moments together, before some kind of biological need drags them out of bed and before the sun fully melts all the remaining snow and provides Emily with the out she would have killed for forty-eight hours prior. 

It’s like the universe has conspired against her. She’d been trapped here against her will and drawn into a situation that she hadn’t bargained for, been tricked into uncovering some latent feelings for one of her closest friends. And now that she’s in this, now that she’s aware of how she feels and is caught in the stage where she’s trying to decide what to do about it, she doesn’t really have any options. Soon she’ll be leaving and this will be over and they’ll go back to being friends - except it won’t be the same, at least not for her, and she’s going to have to navigate that. 

She doesn’t want to, but she’s going to have to. 

This probably isn’t a good idea because she really should get started with that process, but it’s impossible to resist being close to Kelley once more. Especially when she’s making it so easy, opening a window of opportunity and letting Emily have this without needing to ask for it. Because Emily doesn’t think she could, not like this when they’re warm and close, despite the fact that they’re naked and it can only strengthen the illusion of intimacy. 

“Yeah?” Emily says, the word much more difficult to get out than it should be. “Is that what you want me to do?”

Perhaps she’s too good at playing it neutral, because Kelley is arching her hips and it feels a bit like Emily is being egged on to join something that’s already started. 

“I want you,” Kelley says plainly, leaving no room for interpretation as Emily pushes up onto a hand, finding purchase in Kelley’s sheets so she can scan Kelley’s body in the morning light. 

“You’re beautiful,” she says unthinkingly, mental filter failing her again as she stares, taking in that which she saw plenty of yesterday but still feels just as new and exciting today. 

But then Kelley’s impatient and pulling at her shoulder, so Emily strains up to give her the kiss she’s looking for. It’s not long, just a press of lips that she’s sure does more for her than it does for Kelley (she’s got butterflies now, and she hates it), but it’s enough to get the ball rolling and have her admitting to herself that there’s not much that Kelley could ask for that she wouldn’t give her. 

Kelley presses their foreheads together and looks at Emily intensely. 

“Touch me,” she says, and it’s demanding and needy. 

“Okay,” Emily says, and she knows she sounds shaky with fingers to match, and she doesn’t know why she isn’t better at this considering how much time they wasted on it yesterday. Maybe she’s just trying to overcompensate, prove that she’s capable and good and can leave Kelley with memories that are enough to remember her by, but she pushes Kelley’s thighs apart with perhaps a little more force than necessary and inhales deeply. 

“Only if you want to,” Kelley says, and Emily glances up with uncertainty. 

“Do you not want - ”

“Of course I want,” Kelley cuts across. “I just...want you to want this as much as I do.”

Something about it feels familiar but so much has been exchanged between them that it’s near impossible to identify what it’s tempting her to recall. It’s a hint of vulnerability, of Kelley letting her guard down, and Emily wants her to elaborate, but she doesn’t. Instead, Kelley just lets her legs fall open further and settles in comfortably. 

It’s once again remarkable how ready Kelley is for her, warm and slick under Emily’s mouth. She does her best to think back on yesterday, what she’d been doing when Kelley would moan or let out a gasp, tell her how good it felt. Bracing her hands on Kelley’s hips, she uses everything in her arsenal to do this the best way she can, working so hard to earn the moans and words that she knows Kelley likes to utter so much. 

“Oh, Em,” Kelley says, and then she’s swearing, hips tilting up to meet her. 

There’s a constant stream of  _ fuck _ , and Emily feels spurred on as she presses her hands in harder. She clutches tight and works her tongue faster, and then Kelley is panting and Emily wishes she could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest. As much as she’s enjoying how Kelley feels against her, how silky and slick and ready she’s been from the moment Emily had shimmied down to her current position, she almost wants to be able to talk to her. It’s a silly thought, that Emily wants to be able to talk Kelley through this, and she avoids the temptation by adjusting her positioning ever so slightly until Kelley’s breath catches. 

She doesn’t say anything, and it’s unusual for her - all of yesterday she’d been so clear on how she felt, what she wanted, speaking it all into existence like it was the easiest thing for her. But now Kelley goes almost completely quiet, her ragged breathing filling the space between and around them, and Emily begins to think that maybe it’s a bad thing. 

That is, until she suddenly feels Kelley’s fingers on the top of her hand. 

It’s such a Kelley move, to force Emily to give her what she wants. To just go ahead and take it, to tug Emily’s fingers between hers until they’re fully interlocked, no regard for any potential interpretation of the gesture. It has Emily’s heart aching for a second and she falters, suddenly questioning if she should have given into any of this, all the way back to agreeing to come over to the apartment in the first place. 

Except Kelley has her wanting to use ridiculously flowery words to describe this. She’d never dream of describing this as exquisite, and yet it’s the only word she can think of as she slows down, tongue dragging with just enough friction to get Kelley’s grip tightening. 

And then there’s a hand in her hair, and it’s not forceful or even encouraging - it’s just there, almost like Kelley is doing this for both of them. Emily hates it, hates that she can feel herself getting wet, hates that the tenderness and emotion wrapped up into this is entirely of her own creation and yet still having this large of an effect on her. It’s almost cruel, but then Kelley is lightly scratching at her scalp and it feels so good and it momentarily distracts her just enough so she can refocus on what she wants most in this slice of time. 

When Kelley comes, it’s too quiet. It’s unlike her, but Emily unkindly reminds herself that she doesn’t know what Kelley is always like, if she’s even consistent at all. It’s not exactly a cause for worry (Kelley had clutched her hand so hard that Emily had felt the bones rub together); she knows it had been decent at the very least. She pulls herself away to press unintentionally sloppy kisses to Kelley’s lower abdomen just to have something to do. 

“Em,” Kelley says, and it’s cracking, just a touch too high. 

Emily doesn’t say anything, instead just looking up and feeling Kelley’s hand slide out of her hair. 

“Come up here.”

Kelley doesn’t even have to explain, Emily just knows what she wants. She goes without hesitation, clinging to every last interaction between them like this. They kiss and it feels like too much, and Emily wants to berate herself because not everything is intimate and exposing and meaningful, even if it feels like it could be. Superficially, none of this means anything, not even as Kelley continues to loosely hold her hand. 

“Are you wet?” Kelley breathes softly into Emily’s mouth, the kiss barely interrupted. It’s a pointless question, her currently free hand already making its way between Emily’s thighs. 

“Yeah,” Emily whispers back, and she’s embarrassed. This is it though, this is the last time for them, and she’s not going to let that stop her from enjoying it. Just because Kelley doesn’t always want her like this doesn’t mean that she can’t find pleasure in it, find pleasure in Kelley’s talented, nimble fingers. 

It’s too quiet - just kissing and wetness as Kelley operates. Precise isn’t the word for it, bringing negative connotations to mind, but Emily can’t help thinking of success rates and how efficient she is. Kelley’s so good at this,  _ too  _ good _ ,  _ and even though just under the topmost layer of it all she herself is dangerously close to losing it, she keeps it together. 

Emily moves her hips just enough to let this work, and Kelley adjusts her own positioning so they can do this. It isn’t long or drawn out, nothing like how some of it had been the previous day after they’d eaten and had spent hours doing this with no end in sight, never rushing towards a goal or orgasm, but that’s okay. It’s still good, still sickeningly satisfying when Emily’s feels it coming and feels herself clench down around Kelley’s fingers. 

Somehow, Kelley seems to know. Without a word or any sort of communication aside from Emily’s slight pause in kisses, lips momentarily slack as she revels in it all, Kelley places her fingers where they’re really needed and speeds up. Shortly after, Emily can feel it crumbling around her, crashing down from around them instead of starting from the inside as it usually does. It’s in reverse and she’s not entirely sure what to do about it, and she’s so preoccupied with trying to figure it out that she doesn’t even realize how Kelley situates them until it’s already happened. 

It’s not quite like blacking out, but it is a bit like an out of body experience. 

Kelley is holding her close, running a hand up and down her arm in a way that could qualify as comforting. It finally feels like the bliss and relaxation that Emily’s been chasing, and she feels a bit placated because of the orgasm, but Kelley isn’t the type to placate, and that’s the final nail in the coffin. 

All of this happened because Kelley wanted it to, and that alone is enough. 

“Hi,” Kelley says, kissing her forehead. 

“Hi,” Emily says, and knowing that they’ve made it through all of this and are still both intact gives her a strange sort of peacefulness. 

“You good yet?”

It’s still soft but teasing, and Emily blinks to correct her blurry vision before bothering to reply. 

“It’s not like it’s been very long,” she says, and if they weren’t positioned like this, tucked into each other, she’d roll her eyes. 

“Long enough,” Kelley says, and Emily turns her head enough to see the slight smirk on her face. “Thought you were going to need CPR for a second.”

“I hope you’d at least dress me before calling an ambulance,” Emily muses, and Kelley’s laugh feels light, almost completely devoid of sound - just a drift of air between them. 

“And waste precious seconds that could be spent attempting to revive you?”

“Fine,” Emily says, and her head is a bit muddled, but she can keep up with Kelley always. “Put clothes on me and put 911 on speaker.”

“You’re cute,” Kelley says, a bit of a sigh, and Emily can’t help but stare at the slant of her eyelids, how there’s something there that she doesn’t think she’s ever seen before. 

“I know,” Emily says, and it’s just enough to feel normal, to start to come back to her usual self, to their usual dynamic. “I have to pee.”

“Don’t go,” Kelley says, and it’s going to be hard to walk away from this, knowing how needy she gets and how easily Emily could become addicted to it, but she knows that it’s better like this. 

“I can’t stay here forever,” Emily says.

“You could,” Kelley insists, and now she’s back to pushing her face in Emily’s neck, something she’s always done but now seems a little different. Emily wonders if she’s always going to think of this from here on out, if she’s going to carry it with her whenever they’re together in the future. “We could order in all our food. Call in sick to work - use up all our vacation days.”

“Oh, yeah,” Emily says, and she is rolling her eyes now, but she’s also smiling. “Just call the office, why don’t you.”

“They’ll totally understand,” Kelley says, and she lifts her hand to cup the opposite side of Emily’s neck. It borders on claustrophobic, and Emily takes in a long inhale to keep from letting it get to her. 

“You keep touching my neck,” Emily says after a brief moment of careful consideration. 

“I like it,” Kelley mumbles. When she goes sweet and pliant like this, Emily starts to do the same, following her lead and exhaling fully. 

“I really do need to use the bathroom,” Emily says. 

Kelley shushes her. 

“Just a couple more minutes,” Kelley says. “Don’t want to let you go yet.”

Emily lets them stay like that, finally feeling like all the white hot anxiety has stopped spiking - like it’s been quieted, like Kelley has shut up every doubt in her and instilled a sense of acceptance about what the last couple days have meant in the grand scheme of things. Even though this is the end of this particular interlude, that doesn’t mean that they won’t go back to being Kelley and Emily. They can still be themselves with each other, two Georgia peaches, best friends, teammates, opponents - all of it. None of it has to change because of this. 

Thinking forward to the future seems startlingly simple. They’ll go to camps and hang out with their friends, hang out together and separately as they always do. They’ll get coffee and scrimmage together, hand each other water and point out where they missed a bit of sunscreen and ended up a bit red. Nothing will be out of the ordinary, not even when they’re half-dressed in locker rooms and this small collection of days hangs in the back of their minds like old clothes in the back of a closet. 

And then, when they’re not at camp, it will be the same as always. There will be texts and memes sent on Twitter, and Kelley will respond when she’s got the urge to poke fun at Emily, or when she senses that she’s needed for something a little more intense than a simple bad mood. The phone calls used to be more frequent, and for a while now Emily’s been better with measuring them carefully, with gnawing on her thumbnail and considering whether she really needs Kelley before pressing call. Meanwhile, Kelley continues to call at random, unpredictable and sporadic but always welcome. 

Occasionally their paths will cross. Emily isn’t sure of how much it’s about to happen this next year when they’re busy with national team duties, but when they do, she’ll be ready for it. She’s good at playing a gracious host, and Kelley is always an effervescent guest. When they meet up in Georgia in the future, maybe it won’t be like this. Maybe this will be the only thing to change - Emily will insist on neutral ground, on no sleepovers ever again, and she’ll only flash back to this time between them for a split second before moving on, business as usual.

Yes, she thinks, in her own head but still fully aware of her surroundings, of how Kelley has been very still. If Emily didn’t know her so well, if she couldn’t tell by the tension in her forearms, she’d think she was asleep. Yes, it will all be okay, and nothing will really have to change. 

A firm press of gentle fingertips against her neck draws Emily back to the present. 

“What?” she asks, and she doesn’t necessarily expect an answer, but Kelley has one ready. 

“I can feel your pulse,” Kelley says, and it’s low, stirring something in Emily’s stomach, but it’s not the good kind of butterflies. 

“Yeah?” Emily asks, but it’s too thick, too difficult to get the words out. 

“Yeah,” Kelley says, and Emily is privately very glad that they’re not looking at each other right now. 

She thinks that it would be cruel to just get up and leave, and truly a part of her wants to stay, but she knows that they’re going to have to rip the bandage off sooner or later, so she starts to maneuver herself out of Kelley’s embrace. 

“We need to eat,” Kelley says, her voice back to it’s usual, and that makes Emily feel a little better as she searches the floor for something to throw on for the walk to the bathroom. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure we cleared you out,” Emily says distractedly. 

“We can go get something,” Kelley offers, and Emily finds a shirt that she thinks she might have been wearing at some point during this visit. How it ended up on the floor isn’t very clear, but she figures that she’ll get changed back into her own clothes before they venture outside. 

“Where?” Emily asks, throwing the shirt on before rising and making her way to the toilet, ears straining. 

“Can we get hot chocolate?” Kelley calls out, and Emily leaves the door open just a crack, enough for their voices to travel. 

“Not coffee?” Emily asks in surprise. 

“We’ve had enough coffee,” Kelley says loudly. “I want hot chocolate. Maybe I’ll go wild and get some whipped cream.”

Emily laughs as she sits, and things are shifting already, but that’s okay, because she still feels balanced.

She feels okay. 

*

The entire walk down the street, Emily thinks about how badly she wants Kelley to reach out and hold her hand. 

And then she mentally berates herself for wanting that, and then there’s a part of her that tells her that she’s a coward, and if she wants to hold Kelley’s hand, she should reach out and do it herself. After all, it’s not something they’ve never done before - friends can hold hands. But then Kelley skips ahead a few steps, over a couple of damp areas while proclaiming that she doesn’t want to get dirty melted snow on her shoes, and Emily feels the opportunity slipping out of her fingers. She laughs reflexively, a response to Kelley’s shenanigans that remind her of how well they get along and why their connection has always been so easy and natural. It’s nice, nice enough that Emily genuinely thinks she could settle for this, be content with the bond they’ve been sharing for the last few years. 

This is what she gets, Emily thinks as she smiles broadly, watching Kelley wobble while trying to sidestep a particularly large puddle. 

“I’m sad it’s mostly melted,” Kelley says, turning around after catching her balance, and Emily feels a surge of bittersweet fondness. “Would have been nice to play in some more.”

“You’re the one who didn’t want to go out yesterday,” Emily points out, filter slipping like it did earlier in bed. 

“Well, can you blame me?” Kelley asks, and her smile is wicked as she waits for Emily to catch up before immediately darting forward again. 

Emily doesn’t bother answering - she doesn’t think that Kelley expects her to, anyway. Half of what she says seems to be for her own entertainment, either something that she’s thinking but doesn’t need a response to, or something designed to garner a specific desired effect. She feels a blush rise on her cheeks and wonders if that’s what Kelley wants. 

It’s not anything special, just a coffee shop that they duck into quickly. It’s still cold outside, albeit less so than the last time they’d ventured out of the apartment, and the interior is warm both in temperature and design. 

“Do you want them to go?” Emily asks, eyes running over a pair of oversized armchairs. 

“Do you?” Kelley asks, and it feels uncharacteristically considerate as she shrugs off her outer jacket. 

“I’m asking you,” Emily says, feeling awkward as the girl at the counter watches them, waiting for them to approach and place their orders. “If you’d rather head back so I can leave sooner, and you can get on with your day - ”

The disturbed look on Kelley’s face stops her mid sentence, and the blush is back just as soon as she began to feel like it had dissipated. 

“What?” she asks, far too self-conscious for her own liking. 

“What is wrong with you?” Kelley asks, and she’s been a multitude of things during the last few days - sarcastic, eager, sweet - but not this, not demanding in a way that makes Emily feel small. 

“Um,” Emily says, racking her brain to find what she’d done wrong. Before she can say anything, Kelley is violently shaking her head and tucking her jacket into the crook of her elbow. “I don’t know. I’m sorry?”

It comes out as a question because she doesn’t get this, doesn’t get what Kelley is feeling or trying to communicate and she doesn’t get what she’s done to fuck up here. She wants to know so she can fix it, so she can amend what she said and sand away Kelley’s sudden rough edges. But Kelley doesn’t give her that opportunity, instead moving in front of the cash register to look up at the menu.

“Do you still want hot chocolate?” she asks, clearly directed at Emily who is red-hot with embarrassment and slight shame, stepping closer and trying to maintain her outer cool enough to make it through this interaction without fucking up even more. 

Their morning in Kelley’s bed feels so long ago, so far away. It was barely an hour prior that they had yet to put clothes on, about to climb out of bed in the most reluctant way possible. All of the work that Emily’s been doing to make sure that everything lines up in her mind feels like it’s gone to shit, like it’s all been a wasted effort because she doesn’t know which Kelley is which, how to separate her friend and teammate from the person that she’s been so terrifying intimate with. She thought she had it all worked out, and was prepared for Kelley to go back to simply being her friend at some point, but she didn’t anticipate this. 

She didn’t anticipate any kind of hostility. 

“Yeah,” Emily says, and she’s a little too loud and she winces internally. “Um, one small hot chocolate for me, please.”

It’s partially unconscious but also intentional, how she manages to get her phone to the register before Kelley does. She can feel Kelley’s eyes boring holes into the side of her head as the payment goes through, but doesn’t say anything. Instead she goes to the far side of the counter to wait for her drink - if this is how it’s going to have to be between them, she’d rather avoid it. 

It’s harder to hit a moving target, after all. 

She doesn’t listen as Kelley orders and pays, and busies herself with her phone. The last thing she wants is for Kelley to say anything to her, to try and confront her about whatever it is that has her in this mood. So she just fidgets, looks to the side and clears her throat as silently as she can. 

“Do you want me to save us a couple of seats?” she asks, not wanting to be close if this is how it’s going to be. 

“Why are you being like this?” Kelley asks, and it’s again demanding, and Emily’s not sure why she feels tears prick at the corner of her eyes. She just wants them to get along, to be friends like they always have been, and yet it feels like Kelley is being unnecessarily cruel for some reason. 

I - I don’t know,” Emily says quietly, a lump causing the words to stutter and flail as they make their way out. She doesn’t know what to say, and suddenly feels very small. “Can you tell me how I’m being?”

“You’re being difficult,” Kelley says, and for someone who is always publicly relatively easy-going and jovial, someone who prefers to put on a happy face and keep everything light when she’s out and about, she’s being strangely confrontational in a small coffee shop. “There are like, plenty of seats. And I really don’t think a ton of people are about to come in and steal them from us.”

“Okay,” Emily says, because she just wants Kelley to stop this, to go back to normal and stop being mad at her. “Okay, I’m sorry I suggested it.”

Kelley looks like she’s going to say something, but then the barista is sliding a single hot chocolate across the counter and Emily is reaching for it numbly, slipping it in a sleeve and clutching it in a desperate attempt at casual despite the urge to grip it tightly with both hands. Part of her wants to duck away and grab a seat, bury herself in her phone and ignore Kelley until this blows over and they can be good again, but Kelley’s glare keeps her rooted to the spot. 

“You’re not going to run off and leave?” Kelley asks, and it’s quickly veering towards more than Emily can take. 

She takes a deep breath and blinks for a long moment. 

“I’m right here,” she says, and she’s praying for it to not make things worse, but it has the oddest effect instead. 

It seems to make things better. 

Kelley gets her hot chocolate then, and an oversized chocolate chunk cookie on a plate, and Emily is a little surprised. It definitely doesn’t look vegan, and she lets herself be led in the direction of the matching armchairs she’d been eyeing earlier. 

When she sits, she pulls her legs up under her. Cross-legged and curving inward, she continues to clutch her drink while warily glancing at Kelley out of the corner of her eye. Kelley is loose in comparison, setting the cookie down on the table in front of them and sitting with her legs apart. 

“I got it for us to share,” Kelley says, gesturing towards the plate as she wraps her hands around her hot chocolate, the action a familiar one. “So. You can help yourself.”

“Thanks,” Emily says, and she knows it’s too short but she’s too scared of making it bad again to dare say any more. Neither of them seem to want to speak for a bit, with Kelley tapping her toes as she sips, and Emily trying not to reach for her phone even though she wants to - badly. 

She’s not sure how much time goes by, but she’s sure that it’s not as long as it seems. The silence between them seems to stretch for hours, but it can’t be more than a couple of minutes before it ends. Emily knows this because she only gets in a couple of sips after determining that her hot chocolate is the perfect temperature to drink, before Kelley opens her mouth again. 

This time, she isn’t sharp. 

“You want to leave me, then?”

It’s not enough, not from Kelley who has always been the kind of person to immediately fill up a room with her personality. It’s all wrong, too insignificant sounding to possibly be coming from her, and Emily shakes her head as soon as it registers. 

“No,” Emily says, because it’s not often that Kelley seems to genuinely need something, but right now she seems so obviously bothered that the desire to quell her insecurity reigns supreme. “No, it’s not that I want to leave.”

“You keep trying to,” Kelley says, and Emily looks over to see her with her head hanging just low enough to indicate that something is off. It’s not obviously sad, but Emily thinks that she’s been around long enough to be able to spot this. “You wanted to get our drinks to go.”

“It was just a question,” Emily says, and she feels horribly hot, like she’s going to cry. “I’ve been here for days, Kell. I’m just trying to finally get out of your hair.”

“I like you in my hair,” Kelley says, and she leans forward to exchange her cup for the cookie. Emily watches as she breaks it in half. “I thought I made that clear.”

“I know, but now it’s time for me to go,” Emily says, still watching as Kelley holds out half the cookie towards her. 

“I don’t want you to go,” Kelley says, and Emily forces herself to look her in the eye, hands frozen and glued to her own cup. 

“You’ll see me again,” Emily tries, wanting to reassure her. “I mean, camp isn’t far away, and this is already more than we planned for.”

“Will you take the cookie?” Kelley asks, and there’s an edge of exasperation there. 

“I mean,” Emily says, and she can hear herself stammer, hear herself try and simultaneously explain and deflect. “I mean, did I do something? I’m sorry if I’ve been ungrateful, or if - ”

“What?” Kelley asks, and a furrow forms between her brows as her arm drops momentarily. “No, you haven’t been ungrateful. You’ve been extremely unselfish.”

But then she’s offering the cookie again, and Emily doesn’t know how to take it. 

“What did I do then?” she asks, because doesn’t want to feel like this, like they aren’t settled, like the sex fucked things up between them. 

“Will you take the cookie?” Kelley asks, and this time the irritation is obvious. 

“I don’t - ”

“Just take it,” Kelley pushes, and she’s leaning over now, trying to force the cookie half into Emily’s personal space. “I got it for you, and I want you to have it.”

Emily gingerly peels her left hand away from her hot chocolate to accept the gift, letting Kelley lay it on her open palm. She makes no move to eat it, instead looking between it and Kelley’s face. 

She looks tired - that’s to be expected, Emily figures, after their weird schedule the last couple of days. And then she’s as attractive as ever, hazel irises thin in the dimly lit shop, freckles dotting visible skin. Under that is something that Emily is still trying to identify, something she can’t recognize no matter how hard she tries, and she wonders: maybe it’s new. 

But that has her just as lost, no closer to figuring this whole thing out. She’s feeling more and more like she’s missing something, like Kelley’s got something locked away and Emily is a fool for not knowing what it is. Between the bubbling giggles and the look she’d had earlier, and now something awfully similar that makes her stomach roll most unpleasantly, Emily isn’t sure what to do. 

“Will you tell me what you’re thinking?”

It’s still irritated, but something in it is soft enough to drag Emily out of her thoughts. 

“What?” she asks, wondering if she has, yet again, missed something. 

“Will you tell me what you’re thinking,” Kelley repeats, turning it into a statement. “I just want to know what’s going on. If you’re having second thoughts, if you don’t think this is a good idea, or just anything. I want to know.”

“Isn’t it a bit late for that?” Emily asks, and the accompanying laugh feels a bit empty, obligatory, to throw Kelley off of how confused she is. 

“No?” Kelley says, and her nose scrunches up. “Why would it be? You’re like, allowed to change your mind if you want.”

“It’s already happened,” Emily says, and she can feel the chocolate from the cookie melting against her hand. “How can I - how can I change my mind about it?”

“Emily,” Kelley says, and things feel stripped all of a sudden, like they’ve both been very silly, and Emily looks down as she shifts the cookie to hold it between her fingers, taking in the brown splotches on her hand as they catch in the lines of her palm. “Emily, do you - ”

Kelley cuts herself off, and Emily looks at her in time to see her take a sip of her hot chocolate before starting again. 

“Emily, do you think that I would hold you to this?”

It feels too genuine, like Kelley wants a real answer. Emily takes a bite of the cookie to stall, and it’s chewy and delicious and a part of her hates that Kelley knows her well enough to buy the one baked good she’d pick out for herself. 

“I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” she confesses, and it makes her feel stupid for not understanding. 

“If you really don’t want this, I won’t hold it against you,” Kelley says, and despite the cookie, something tastes acrid in the back of her mouth. “But if it’s just general worry or something, you can talk to me. I’ll help you figure it out.”

“Kelley,” Emily says, and she’s starting to lose her grip on the situation entirely. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Like, general worry about other people finding out what’s happened between us?”

“We can figure it out,” Kelley says, and it’s almost too eager. “How to tell everyone. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Why would we tell them?” Emily asks, and the chocolate on her hand is getting sticky. 

“Because…”

The word starts off strong, but then Kelley’s expression changes to one that’s surprisingly thoughtful, and while Emily doesn’t see it too often, she knows it well enough to find comfort in the familiar. 

“Do you not want to tell people?” Kelley asks, and Emily chews through more cookie while trying to figure out why Kelley would  _ want _ to tell people about them sleeping together. 

“Do you tell everyone whenever you sleep with someone?” Emily asks, and she can’t remember if that’s something Kelley has done in the past - she’s been too much of a serial monogamist to be one for flings. 

“Is that what this is?” Kelley says, something dawning on her. “You thought - you thought that was just sex?”

Emily is back to feeling like the rug has been torn out from underneath her, except a bit more successfully this time, and the blood pounds shamefully in her ears as she shrugs and eats the rest of the cookie. 

“Emily,” Kelley says, and she leans forward to push her cup onto the table before pulling her legs up underneath her to sit on. “Emily, look at me.”

Except she doesn’t want to; she just wants to crack a joke and then crawl into a hole and die. 

“ _ Em _ .”

She shakes her head but that doesn’t seem to matter to Kelley, who reaches out to place a hand on her forearm. 

“Will you look at me so I can talk with you and we can figure out what’s going on here?”

It’s too confrontational, too Kelley and too much and Emily finds herself missing her parents’ house where her biggest worry was whether or not she’d be asked to help wash some dishes. 

“Nothing is going on,” Emily says, because she can’t be quiet for too long, or else Kelley will keep talking, and she kind of doesn’t want to hear what she has to say. 

“It’s just me,” Kelley says, and she’s pleading for something that Emily isn’t sure how to give. 

It’s so easy when they’re literally stripped bare, when they’re naked and desperate and clutching onto each other. It tears down their inhibitions and makes everything so much easier, makes it easier to be open and ask for what they want. It lets Emily feel like she can say things that she might have a difficult time verbalizing otherwise, and she knows that’s why people do this. People do this for the feeling it gives them; they fuck and they feel so many good things that the bad just gets pushed away and ignored.

But no one talks about the hard part afterwards, and Emily almost wonders if it’s just her that experiences it, but that doesn’t feel true. It wouldn’t make any sense for her to be the only one who has to deal with the guards popping back up and the loss of those intensely positive emotions. Because when those go out the window, it’s so easy for the intensely negative emotions to come rushing in to take their place. 

Maybe Kelley doesn’t experience it like that, but Emily knows that she can’t be the only one. 

She can’t be the only one who clams up, who feels such a strong need to protect herself and bunker down with just herself and her hot chocolate and wait until everything can begin to feel right again. 

“Please talk to me,” Kelley says, and now her thumb is rubbing against Emily’s arm, catching on the fabric of her jacket. “Because I feel like you can’t leave me fast enough, and I thought we were past that. I just want to know what’s going on.”

Emily just stares at her hand, at the drying chocolate smudges. 

“I need a napkin.”

It’s all she can think to say, focusing on her open palm so she doesn’t give into the drowning in her head. 

Kelley takes her arm back. 

She leaves, and Emily doesn’t panic, but she doesn’t feel numb either. She stays right where she is and stares at her hand, keeping as calm as she can until Kelley returns in mere seconds with a small stack of napkins. 

“Here,” Kelley says, and Emily takes them, rubbing the chocolate off. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Emily says, because she knows that no matter what, she’ll be fine. “Thank you.”

“It’s just me, you know?” Kelley asks as she settles back into her own chair. “We’ve had a million talks before, so why is this so hard for you?”

Emily just waits until her hand is clean and she’s placed the crumpled napkins on the table. She’s a bit surprised that Kelley gives her that time, that she doesn’t keep talking or trying to pry something out of her, and maybe that’s what lets her feel comfortable enough to take a deep breath and sort through all the words that have been flying in and out of her head. 

“I know it’s just you,” she starts, “but that’s what makes it hard for me.”

“You can trust me,” Kelley says, and now that Emily’s hand is clean, she finds Kelley reaching over to take it. It’s a little tentative but firm, and she doesn’t resist the way Kelley clasps it between hers. “Have I ever let you down?”

The answer is  _ no _ , and Emily shakes her head when she can’t bring herself to say so. 

“So talk to me,” Kelley says. “Or else I’m going to hold you captive until you do, and then you really will never leave.”

Emily can’t help but smile at that. 

“I care about you,” Emily says. “I just want to make sure that we can still be friends.”

“Still be friends?” Kelley ass, and Emily can see her nose wrinkling in something - distaste, confusion, she isn’t entirely certain. “Did you think we wouldn’t be?”

“I wasn’t sure if things would be awkward,” Emily says with a shrug, and she’s still dealing with the crushing weight of insecurity, but saying something is feeling better than being quiet did. “I just want to be able to go back to normal.”

Of all the reactions she could expect from Kelley, an abrupt stiffening is not one of them. 

“What?” she asks. 

“Back to normal?” Kelley asks, and the pitch of her voice is all wrong. “Do you not - do you not like me?”

“What?” Emily says again, and her palm begins to feel sweaty where it’s sandwiched between Kelley’s. “You’re one of my best friends, of course I like you.”

“No,” Kelley says. “Like...romantically like me. Have I been reading that wrong?”

“Romantically?” Emily asks, and her heart is speeding up once more. “Did you think I did?”

“Um, yeah,” Kelley says, and she removes only one of her hands to push her hair behind her ears, the other still pressed to Emily’s. “Do you - do you not?”

Not expecting to be called out like that, Emily’s fingers clench around her half-empty hot chocolate and she debates taking a long sip to put off responding. But then Kelley is speaking and it’s fast, so many words spilling out and reminding Emily of how she does this after she comes. 

“Because I thought we were finally on the same page,” Kelley says, and Emily can see the nerves in how she adjusts her hair again, hear it in how she trips over the first word. “That the timing was right, and you were here and you didn’t mind that I kissed you, and you were okay with it all, and you wanted everything I did.”

“I did want everything you did,” Emily says, when Kelley breaks to breathe. “I’m glad we had these days together.”

“But I don’t want this to be it,” Kelley says insistently, a little wildly, and Emily feels like her stomach is trying to claw its way up her esophagus, up and out of her throat, butterflies included. 

“No?” Emily gets out, trying not to sound too choked up. 

“No,” Kelley says, and she’s shaking her head and it feels like they’re barreling towards something, something scary and thrilling but ultimately honest. They’re barreling forward and there’s no stopping it, not now. “I had the best time with you. The  _ best _ time. I just want this again and again.”

“Kelley - ”

“And I thought that maybe you wanted it too, and you’d stopped wanting to leave. I thought that maybe you wanted to leave because you didn’t know that I liked you, but now you do and you’re still trying to leave. 

“Kell - ”

“I don’t want to make you stay,” Kelley says, still forging her way onward. “I won’t make you stay. But I thought that you liked me too, and that you’d want to stay.”

“ _ Kelley _ .”

“Okay,” Kelley says, and she lets out a long sigh, squaring her shoulders before relaxing them. “I just - I wanted to make that clear.”

“I didn’t know,” Emily says, and she knows she’s blushing and visibly embarrassed. “I didn’t know that you liked me”

A long beat passes, and then - 

“Oh,” Kelley says, and it’s weird. “Oh.”

“I didn’t know,” Emily repeats. “I didn’t - you like me?”

“Yeah,” Kelley says, and Emily feels like she’s being scrutinized. “I do.”

“Like. In a more than friends way?” Emily needs to clarify. Her brain feels like it’s buffering. 

“Yeah,” Kelley says, and she’s rolling her eyes a bit but also smiling. “Yeah, you idiot, I do.”

“Oh,” Emily says, and she’s thinking, trying to process this new information, and she wants to take her time on this but she’s smiling too, can feel it in her cheeks, in the pull of her mouth. “Well.”

“So what,” Kelley says, eyes narrowing slightly, “you thought I was just going to sleep with you and then leave it at that?”

Emily’s face is so warm, her flush creeping down towards her neck. 

“I wasn’t sure,” she mumbles, and she knows her hot chocolate is no longer warm, but that doesn’t seem to matter nearly as much as this conversation. “I - I was prepared for the possibility.”

“Em,” Kelley says, and it’s so sweet, so unlike how they usually are with each other, that Emily feels compelled to meet her gaze head-on. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Emily says, and it’s almost thrilling, how peeking through all the resignment and embarrassment there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, punching holes through everything she’s been stubbornly maintaining. 

“I wouldn’t,” Kelley tells her, promises her. 

“So you like me,” Emily says, the concept foreign but so appealing. 

“Very much so,” Kelley says, nodding her head. “And now that I know the sex is great, I don’t think I can stop myself from wanting you.”

A thought pops into Emily’s head. 

“Is that why you invited me over?” she asks, the idea both laughable and thought-provoking. “Did you want me to come over the other day for this?”

“No,” Kelley swears. “No, I just wanted to spend time with you.”

“So what happened?” Emily asks. 

Kelley looks her in the eye as she pulls her hand away to reach for her cup, and Emily feels a tad bereft. 

“How about this,” Kelley says slowly. “You can finish the rest of the cookie, because we both know I really got it for you. While you do that, I’m going to get us new hot chocolates for the walk back to my place - because you know I’m pissed that you wouldn’t let me pay for yours.”

“Are you ready to go?” Emily asks, a little thrown but feeling better about the situation, more open to what Kelley wants to do. 

“Yeah,” Kelley says simply. “Because I want to kiss you, and I’d rather do that back at the apartment.”

“Oh,” Emily says, and the butterflies are going strong, but this time they feel good, they feel welcome. “Yeah. I’m okay with that.”

It’s all she can think about as she finishes the cookie, as she watches Kelley order them two more drinks. Normally she’d take this time to pull her phone out, to see if there are any missed messages or to let her mom know when to expect her back home, but for now she just sits and watches. She eats and watches Kelley who looks the same as always and yet seems to be standing in an entirely new light as she waits at the pickup counter. 

There’s a piece of cookie pinched between her fingers and halfway to Emily’s mouth when Kelley turns her head, seeking her out and locking eyes. Emily pauses, aware that she’s been caught and there’s the heat spreading across her face, but Kelley doesn’t seem to mind. No, in fact she just throws Emily a wink, one that feels so normal and easy and the perfect amount of cheeky. It’s enough to loosen the tension in Emily’s shoulders, enough for her to smile back before shoving the cookie into her mouth and crossing her eyes for no other reason than to entertain Kelley. 

It feels cute, and special, and Emily cleans up their area before meeting Kelley at the door and accepting the hot chocolate that gets shoved into her chest. 

“Here,” Kelley says as they make their way outside, trying to hand Emily her drink as well. “Let me put my jacket back on.”

They move together fluidly, so used to existing in each other’s space that it’s second nature to bend where the other pushes, to know when to push back and when to accommodate. Once they’re both as comfortable as they can be in the cold, the sun warming the street just enough that Emily’s fingers don’t start to freeze, Kelley picks up where they left off. 

“It felt like you wanted to be as close to me as I wanted to be to you,” Kelley says, and she casts Emily a sidelong glance that feels searching. “And if you hadn’t let me kiss you, if you’d pushed me away or something, I would have left it at that.”

“But I didn’t,” Emily says, trying to fit all the pieces together. 

“No,” Kelley says, shaking her head. “No, you let us have much more than I expected, and I thought you knew what I wanted. But maybe I was too busy being so excited and in awe of actually doing this with you, that I didn’t stop to properly check in on you. I probably should have.”

It’s Emily’s turn to shake her head. 

“It’s okay,” Emily says. “It’s not all on you.”

“I don’t want to play the blame game,” Kelley says, and there’s just enough nervousness to it to make Emily laugh. 

“Good,” she tells her. “Because I’m not looking to blame you for anything. We just have to work on our communication skills with this, I guess.”

“Yeah?” Kelley asks, mouth curving into a smile as she lifts her cup up. “So you’re into letting this continuing to be a thing?”

Emily feels like she can’t adequately speak then, turning red and just making a noncommittal sound. The way Kelley laughs isn’t quite her little giggle, but something delicate enough that it makes Emily’s chest tighten with affection. 

“Yeah,” Emily says. “Yeah, this can be a thing.”

“Sweet,” Kelley says, and then they’re both smiling too wide. “That just makes me super sad that you’re leaving me now.”

“I know,” Emily says, and she can’t help but roll her eyes a little. “But I’d like to be able to wear my own clothes again, and maybe even eat a home cooked meal.”

“Hey,” Kelley says, eyes narrowing in protest. “I cooked for you!”

“You made eggs,” Emily corrects. “Hardly a gourmet meal.”

“Multiple times! I made them for you multiple times!” 

It’s so fun to laugh at her, Emily thinks as they walk and she rags on Kelley some more about the lack of non perishables in her apartment. Kelley even laughs back at her, trying and failing to keep a stubborn face about it until they’ve both got stitches in their sides.

“Fine,” Kelley says, eventually giving up when Emily refuses to stay any longer, no matter how badly she’d like to. “But I’d let you get the food you like, you know.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Emily says with a shrug as they finally reach Kelley’s building. “I mean, we’ll see each other soon anyway. Camp is right around the corner.”

Kelley pouts all the way to the elevator, the two of them heading up together so Emily can make sure she’s got everything of hers before heading home. 

“But I want you to come to this New Years Eve party I’m going to,” Kelley says, and Emily’s heart skips a beat.

“Yeah?” she asks nervously. 

“Yeah,” Kelley nods. “I just want to be able to kiss you at midnight.”

“I might be able to swing that,” Emily says, and she’s already thinking too fast, logistics and what it means and who else is going to be there.

She’s not sure what makes her do it, but as soon as the elevator doors close, she’s shifting her cup of hot chocolate cup to one hand so she can hold Kelley’s face with her other one. It’s cold against her cheek, Emily knows, and their lips are cold when they meet. 

The kiss is sweet, and Emily pulls away before Kelley can have much of a chance to reciprocate.

“No fair,” Kelley says, and she’s still pouting, and it’s ridiculous how good she looks like this. Her cheeks and pink from the cold and her eyes are bright, hair a little windblown but looking good, much better then Emily knows hers does at the moment. 

“Why not?” Emily asks, taking her hand back. 

“Because,” Kelley says. “I wanted to kiss you.”

The doors chime open then, and Emily lets Kelley lead them down the hall. 

“You can kiss me,” Emily says after her.

She doesn’t expect it, the way Kelley whirls around before they get to the door. 

“Good, because i don’t plan on asking for your permission anymore,” Kelley breathes, and then she’s kissing Emily hard, and Emily thinks - 

Emily thinks that she’s never been so grateful for snow in her life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fun little fic idea took a lot longer to finish than anticipated, but this should tie it up all nice and neat! i hope you all enjoyed this despite the fact that the holiday season is over - it's still winter though, which counts for something!


End file.
